Geographic Apartheid and the Homeless in Detroit

In recent weeks, some troubling accusations have been leveled against the city of Detroit's police force. The ACLU of Michigan alleges that the Detroit Police Department (DPD) is forcing the city's homeless who congregate in popular tourist neighborhoods into vans and bringing them to East Detroit and points outside the city limits in the hopes that they will have a difficult time returning to the popular destinations. These allegations are the latest in a series of "homeless dumping" concerns raised in Detroit and follow on the footsteps of controversial efforts in cities like New York to send the homeless out of the city by buying individuals and families one-way tickets to faraway cities where they can stay with relatives.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

At the center of the news of the disturbing treatment of Detroit's homeless population is a kernel of good news that may surprise the naysayers and connoisseurs of Detroit "ruin porn." This good news is related to tangible economic development and rejuvenation efforts in Detroit, particularly in the Greektown and Midtown neighborhoods, where both prosperous locals and tourists flock to galleries, trendy restaurants, and entertainment venues like the Greektown Casino. However, this nascent Detroit renaissance has come at the expense of those most in need in a city where hundreds of thousands of residents remain unemployed or underemployed and in need of livable, affordable housing. Quinn Klinefelter of WDET Radio in Detroit recently spoke with NPR's Celeste Headlee and provided more detail about the allegations, including claims that the DPD made homeless Detroiters empty their pockets of bus fare to prevent them from quickly returning to Greektown along routes that avoid many of the Detroit neighborhoods where panhandlers might be easy targets for robbery.

The DPD and U.S. Attorney's Office have stated that they have not yet received a copy of the specific allegation made by the ACLU to the Justice Department and will not respond to the allegations until they have more information. In the meantime the ACLU's allegation of "homeless dumping", in addition to raising questions about violations of Fourth and Sixth Amendment rights, present a startling example of what can happen when gentrification is predicated on the disenfranchisement of some of most vulnerable sectors of society and presents an opportunity to turn away from these practices and implement policies that encourage economic development and the renewed urban activity in urban cores like Detroit while meeting the demand for affordable housing units. These policies would better ensure that renewed urban fortunes can be enjoyed by a wider portion of the population and break away from the forcible separation of the homeless from the rest of the city in a geographic apartheid that amounts to mistreatment and violation of basic dues process rights and protection from unwarranted search and seizure.

The Bridge and Tunnel Fair Housing Battle Continues in Westchester

Image Credit: Ant-Discrimination Ctr. of Metro N.Y. 

The state of fair housing in high-income areas has been the subject of several posts on this blog (and much coverage in the Times' Real Estate section) and, this week, Westchester County, home to many well-heeled New York suburbs as well as low-income cities like Yonkers, came under judicial and administrative scrutiny for failure to comply with previous orders to prohibit housing discrimination based on sources of income. In 2009, a federal court mandated that Westchester County would undertake the construction of more than 750 affordable housing units in largely white and affluent communities (similar to the Montgomery County, Md. model, though on a smaller scale) and market them to minority and low and moderate-income tenants living in other parts of the county and the region, thus attempting to address the county's pattern of de facto racial and economic segregation. See U.S. ex rel. Anti-Discrimination Ctr. of Metro N.Y., Inc. v. Westchester Cnty., 668 F.Supp.2d 548 (S.D.N.Y. 2009). While county officials claim that they have taken considerable steps toward the construction of such housing, HUD spokespeople claim that the district court's decision, upheld by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals last month, obliges the county to put in place mechanisms to prevent housing discrimination based on sources of income, including Section 8 vouchers, alimony, and child support. See U.S. ex rel. Anti-Discrimination Ctr. of Metro N.Y., Inc. v. Westchester Cnty., No. 12-2047 (2d Cir. Apr. 5, 2013). Citing the County Executive's 2010 veto of the Board of Legislature's ban on income-based housing discrimination and the county's lack of meaningful review of its fair housing ordinances, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York's office stated that Westchester was not in compliance with previous orders and placed a deadline of this week to reintroduce legislature banning source-of-income housing discrimination. Additionally, HUD has threatened the revocation of more than $7M in funds allocated to Westchester County if the county does not comply with these measures. Last week, the Board of Legislatures voted to further challenge the lawsuit but the County Exceutive's recent statement that he would sign the anti-discrimination bill he previously vetoed if the legislature passes it again and strong statements in favor of more inclusive housing policies from many Westchester residents point toward a possible bright spot on the long road toward income-based house fairness in many of the nation's more affluent municipalities.

When Nuisance Laws Become a Menace

The law of nuisance has emerged over the centuries to govern relationships between neighbors and community members who have contractual obligation to each other. The most common contemporary nuisance laws, usually enacted in the form of local ordinances, regulate conduct that is not usually illegal but, if it exerts harm that outweighs its social utility and is unsuitable to the area in which the conduct occurs, can constitute an undesirable burden on the community. Factors such as the nature of the conduct (e.g. intentional or unintentional), character of the harm (the level of danger posed to the community), and the cost to both the plaintiff and defendant in avoiding the harm have been incorporated into analyses of nuisance complaints. See Page Cnty. Appliance Ctr., Inc. v. Honeywell, 347 N.W.2d 171 (Iowa 1984). Examples of such conduct range from loud noises and unruly gatherings in residential areas to agricultural and chemical waste. See e.g. Art. 40, Amherst, Mass. Home Rule Auth. Bylaws (2008); KOC 830.6 (2008). Ordinances that enforce the limits of nuisances, particularly in residential communities, work toward the goal of encouraging neighbors to get along,  foster respect, and prevent excessive litigation.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

However, a host of nuisance laws across the country have been challenged for violating residents' civil and constitutional rights, including protections enumerated in the Fair Housing Act. A particular example of these distressing nuisance laws that has recently attracted a flurry of media attention is the "disorderly behavior ordinance" in Norristown, Pa., a borough near Philadelphia. According the ACLU, the borough "penalizes landlords and tenants when the police respond to three instances of 'disorderly behavior', including domestic disturbances, within a four-month period." After these "three strikes" of police response to domestic disturbances, landlords are pressured by the borough to evict the tenant and, in some cases, have threatened to condemn properties and forcibly remove tenants if they are not evicted. Such threats have led many victims of domestic violence, including named plaintiff Lakisha Briggs, was threatened with eviction after she and various neighbors reporting her ex-boyfriend's violent behavior to police, to remain silent and refrain from reporting instances of abuse to authorities in fear of eviction. Although Norristown agreed to repeal the disorderly behavior ordinance, the borough subsequently passed an ordinance that outlines fines that can be placed on landlords who do not evict tenants who call for police assistance, including for instances of domestic violence that "do not require a mandatory arrest to be made." Borough of Norristown Code §245-3 (2013).

The sense of fear and helplessness that these ordinances impose on victims of domestic abuse, in addition to violating tenants' First Amendement rights and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), may also present violations of the Fair Housing Act under the still-debated disparate impact theory. The Act prohibits housing discrimination on the basis of "race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical ability, or familial status" with limited exceptions and, as studies show that women and persons of color are victims of domestic violence more often than other populations, housing discrimination against domestic violence victims would disproportionately affect female tenants and tenants of color and thus constitute unlawful housing practices under a theory of disparate impact. While SCOTUS has not yet ruled on whether fair housing discrimination claims can be properly brought on disparate impact grounds, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Pennsylvania, along with the other federal circuits have allowed disparate impact fair housing claims to be brought. Indeed, the case which prompted SCOTUS' recent invitation to the Solicitor General to express the views of the U.S. regarding disparate impacts on housing was a Third Circuit decision to allow disparate impact claims. See Mt. Holly Gardens Citizens in Action, Inc. v. Twp. of Mt. Holly, 658 F.3d 375 (3d Cir. 2011). Disparate impact theory presents an opportuity to add cognizable housing discrimination claim to the VAWA and First Amendment claims that are likely to be filed in opposition to these "disorderly behavior" ordinances. 

Breaking the Fourth Wall #1: Week of April 23

Image Credit: The Community Builders, Inc.

This is the inaugural post in this blog's weekly series entitled "Breaking the Fourth Wall", an endeavor to direct the spotlight toward a particularly innovative or promising affordable housing project, luminary, or organization. In light of the beautiful resiliency shown by 4Walls1Blog's hometown of Boston in the wake of last week's horrific bombings and subsequent manhunt and shootout, we begin our series in Boston- a city long recognized as a bastion of diversity, tolerance, and progressive affordable housing policies- with the 225 Centre/Jackson Square project.

The 225 Centre Street project represents the first building in a $250M redevelopment plan featuring fourteen-buildings in the Jackson Square area of Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. Like many ambitious redevelopment plans around Boston, the project- a joint venture between The Community Builders (TCB) and Mitchell Properties- is located in a community experiencing dramatic demographic shifts and the simultaneous tensions and benefits of three decades of gentrification. Unlike many other Boston redevelopment projects, 225 Centre is being built in an area of underutilized or vacant land- the product of preparations for a defeated highway extension proposal in the 1970s. The project is a mixed-use, mixed-income community of 103 rental units, 35 of which are marked as affordable for families below the poverty line and others reserved for "extremely low income" families. 225 Centre will also boast 16,000 square feet of commercial space and landscape improvements to the surrounding streetscape. 225 Centre came to our attention and kicks off this series following reasons:

1. Transit-Oriented Development 
The need for affordable and mixed-income housing communities with access to public transportation to vibrant commercial centers, jobs, and services is a pressing concerns for affordable housing advocates and urban planners. 225 Centre is located adjacent to the Jackson Square station on the Orange Line of the T (Boston's subway system) and is at the convergence of several major bus routes, many of which link the development to downtown Boston. Additionally, the development provides easy access to the lovely SW Corridor Path, a pedestrian and bike-friendly greenbelt built on part of the proposed highway extension that links Jackson Square to the rest of Boston. In keeping with Boston's reputation as America's premier college town, public transit and the Corridor Path connects 225 Centre Street with nearby Northeastern University and Roxbury Community College, enhancing the potential for community access to these institutions and future partnerships.

2. Coordination with Community Groups 
225 Centre and the larger fourteen building redevelopment effort is the result of close cooperation with community development corporations (CDCs) across Boston. TCB and Mitchell have worked with the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Development Corporation, Urban Edge, and the Hyde Square Task Force to devise the projected master plan. The valuable input from these community organizations has led to a relationship that will allow for smart, sustainable growth benefitting both new residents and businesses at 225 Centre and current residents whose housing and commercial needs will be addressed by the project. As a result of dialogue between the developers and community groups, the fourteen buildings affiliated with the 225 Centre/Jackson Square project are expected to add 50,000 square feet of community facility space.

3. Return of Commercial Activity to Neighborhood 
In addition to the development of mixed-income and affordable housing units, 225 Centre and affiliated projects have designated 60,000 square feer of retail and commercial space. This will allow neighborhood residents to have easy access to more goods and services previously only available outside the area or in short supply. Increased retail and commercial opportunities in Jackson Square will introduce additional jobs to the neighborhood and provide residents with more options at various price points as well as convenient access that may remove many prior barriers to obtaining these goods and services.

Is Squatting the "Highest and Best Use" in Some Vacant Neighborhoods?

Image Credit: The Washington Post 

The landscapes of American cities that have suffered from crises both financial and environmental- think Detroit and New Orleans- are dotted with vacant lots that are vestiges of once-abandoned properties that have been cleared away or deteriorated beyond repair. Records concerning the ownership of these lots are difficult to obtain and often nonexistent and some residents in largely vacant areas have co-opted adjoining parcels in a bid to reclaim many of these lots from overgrowth and decay. As Emily Badger writes, residents of Northwest Detroit's Brightmoor have used these lots for urban gardens, orchards, and even vineyards, infusing dreary blocks with well-tended splashes of green. Residents are technically "squatting" on these vacant lots, but their practices are seen by many as beneficial to preserving neighborhoods from complete blight. While the law favoring the highest and best use of land, driven by the economic theory of utility, usually equates "highest and best" with the most economically profitable use, many of these neighborhoods are devoid of capital and investor attention. Residents' efforts to acquire vacant land enhance sustainability, aesthetic improvement, and community pride in areas that are not often hotbeds of these initiatives. While the reflex is to weed the squatters out of these lots, the benefits of residents' improvements to various blocks, often implemented after attempts to acquire land through legal channels, could substantiate the theory that these "squatters" are performing unexpected acts of community development and should be supported by local governments.

Evaluating the Community Benefits of the CBA

Image Credit: Urban Habitat 

Despite major private investments in economic development initiatives, residents of changing neighborhoods in many cities have experienced only the pitfalls of gentrification, trying to navigate life in newly expensive areas that lack affordable housing. In response to new development's lack of affordable units, cities around the country have entered into community benefits agreements (CBAs) with developers. CBAs, which are legally-binding contracts focused on coalition building, allow communities affected by development to participate in the planning process and ensure that the community's initial residents experience many of the benefits of economic transformation without being pushed out of the neighborhood. See William Ho, Community Benefits Agreements: An Evolution in Public Benefits Negotiation Process, 17 J. Affordable Hous. & Comm. Dev. L. 7 (2008). CBA negotiations, the first of which involved the agreement surrounding the construction of the Staples Center in Los Angeles in 2001, often include promises to pay local workers a living wage in both the redevelopment project, environmentally-friendly construction, and the inclusion of a certain number of low or moderate-income housing units. In return for their agreement to develop in a manner beneficial to the community, developers often get the desired community support for their projects which can expedite the planning and permitting process. CBA advocates have heralded t initiatives such as the Yale-New Haven CBA, Atlanta Beltline CBA, and Columbia-West Harlem Expansion CBA as instrumental to bringing significant improvements to neighborhoods and preserving community interests and identities in the face of ambitious projects driven by wealthy Tulane Public Law Center and Urban Land Institute held a symposium on CBAs entitled "Win-Win-Win: The Advatages of CBA's for the Community, Developers, Government, and You!" during which the CBA was upheld as a model of future legally enforceable protections for affordable housing, green initiatives, and the income inequality in gentrifying communities. 

institutions and developers. The Atlanta Beltline is particularly notable for the City's requirement of CBAs as a condition for developers receiving light rail subsidies. In 2011, the

However, legal and community development scholars have questioned the "win-win" view of CBAs. Criticisms of these agreements include concerns that decisions made by community leaders do accurately reflect the preferences of the community, that CBAs support neighborhood-by-neighborhood decision-making of issues that would be better decided at the broader city or state level, and that CBAs do not adequately address the inherent power imbalance that exists between community organizations and deep-pocketed developers and precludes truly equal negotiations. Additionally, NYU Law Professor Vicki Been considers whether CBAs are actually exactions (condition imposed on a developer by a local government in exchange for the government permitting land use they would otherwise prohibit) that do not meet the SCOTUS nexus requirement of a "legitimate and proportional [government] interest" and thus are violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. See Dolan v. City of Tigard, 512 U.S. 374, 391 (1994); see also Vicki Been, Community Benefits Agreements: A New Local Government Tool or Another Variation on the Exactions Theme?, 77 U. Chi. L. Rev. 5 (201). Thus, proponents of CBAs are faced with simultaneous concerns that these agreements are too weak to achieve their intended purposes and so overbearing as to amount to potentially unconstitutional exactions. 

Where does the CBA as an increasingly popular development tool go from here? Is there a way to ensure that CBAs put community leaders and developers on roughly equal footing while avoiding constitutional challenges? Again, the City of Atlanta's legislative requirement of the formation of  CBAs in order for developers to be eligible for subsidies proves to be a promising example. These legislative requirements provide additional government support behind community agreements and (theoretically) increase developers' accountability. Such provisions could be useful in navigating the landscape of community benefits agreements, which have the potential to provide legally enforceable mechanisms for communities to articulate and promote their interests in time of great physical and socioeconomic change. 

The State of Fair Housing in the 21st Century: Gaps in Legal Protection

Image Credit: National Fair Housing Alliance 

In the week following the Fair Housing Act's forty-fifth anniversary, much attention has been paid to how far we've come on the fair housing front and how far we still have to go. Earlier, this blog discussed how the U.S. housing market is from from perfect and free from discrimination and other writers, such as The Atlantic Cities' Emily Badger, have provided examples of the discrimination that exists generations after the signing of the Act and its 1988 amendments. The National Fair Housing Alliance recently released a report advocating more inclusive fair housing policies in the states that do not protect against housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, and source of income. According to the report, which compiled data on fair housing complaints during the past year, twenty-nine states allow legal housing discrimination based on sexual orientation, thirty-four states allow discrimination based on gender identity, twenty-nine states permit discrimination based on marital status, and thirty-seven states allow for the legal discrimination based on a prospective tenant's source of income, including alimony, child support, or vouchers. The extent to which millions of Americans are left vulnerable to discrimination with no actionable protection or legal recourse is astounding and illuminates the need for a fair housing rethink- it's been twenty-five years since more people were included as protected classes under the Act- and more comprehensive federal fair housing regulations.

Glass Half-Full Amidst FHA Bailout Worries?

Image Credit: Bubble Info 

While news this week of the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) possible need of a $943 million bailout from the federal Treasury presents a bleak picture of the ripple effects of the housing crisis, the same reports provide some hopeful figures and trends. First, speculation about the possible need for the first bailout in the agency's 80-year history is largely based on current projected figures and the likelihood of the FHA tapping into the Treasury will likely not be known until the close of the fiscal year in the fall. Second, FHA Commissioner Carol Galante notes that the FHA has taken"stop gap" measures to protect some of the FHA's previous vulnerability, such as a moratorium on standard fixed-rate reverse mortgages readjusting maximum amounts, and requiring all borrowers to attend reverse mortgage counseling before applying for a loan. Finally, while much of the FHA's shortfall is caused by fallout from government-backed reverse mortgages that provide tax-free cash to senior citizens and result in default if the homeowners do not pay property taxes or insurance, the rest of the FHA is on firmer financial ground- excepting the reverse mortgage program, the other initiatives, including the robust single-family program, would result in a nearly $4 billion surplus at the end of the FY. While the FHA treads unpredictable waters and many of the policies surrounding government-backed reverse mortgages- like the reverse mortgages themselves- are controversial, the resurgence of the single-family home program provide some cause for cautious optimism about the future of the FHA. Nothing is certain about the prospect of a bailout as we turn our eyes toward October.

A Look in the Housing History Book: A Shining Birthday for Fair Housing Act

Credit: Greater Baltimore Comm. Housing Resources Board

April is National Fair Housing Month, a HUD designation with special significance this year as the Fair Housing Act turns forty-five. The Fair Housing Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on April 11, 1968 as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which expanded the protections from discrimination codified in the previous Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act was a response to the "open housing marches", calls for fair housing legislation, and tireless advocacy on the part of civil rights leaders, including the recently assassinated Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., "prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on, race, religion, national origin, or sex." 42 U.S.C. § 3604 et seq. While it is often overshadowed by the other monumental civil rights legislation and Great Society programs of the 1960s, the Fair Housing Act has played a pivotal role in helping Americans of all racial backgrounds, ethnicities, and protected classes obtain equal access to a most essential and basic human need- housing. In 1988, the Act was amended to preclude housing discrimination based on disability or family status. The Act provided a federal statutory basis to counteract discrimination, abandoning the cumbersome "state versus private action" distinction that courts used to strike down racially restrictive covenants in the 1940s. See Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948). Throughout the past five decades, the Fair Housing Act has been used to shift the burden on landlords to provide a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason to deny access to housing to a member of a protected class, invalidate racial quotas in housing, and to provide compensation to minority homebuyers disproportionately affected by subprime lending practices. See Asbury v. Brougham, 866 F.2d 1276 (10th Cir. 1989); U.S. v. Starrett City Assocs., 488 U.S. 946 (1988); e.g., U.S. v. Wells Fargo Bank (D.D.C. 2012). Forty-five years later, the U.S. housing landscape, though far from perfect, is a much more equitable place thanks to the many years of fair housing advocates' tireless  efforts and the wielding of one lucite-stemmed pen.

Image Credit: Daily News 

Downsizing Schools and Upgrading Housing?

Faced with shrinking populations, budget cuts, and- in some extreme cases- temporary takeover by article, there have been few conversations about what to do with the empty school buildings, many of which are located in low-income neighborhoods. Many of the larger abandoned buildings would be ideal for repurposed affordable housing, but a lack of neighborhood political will and willing developers coupled with certain laws restricting usage of former schools present obstacles that have consequences for the architectural future of the buildings and for housing options in areas that are in need of more affordable units near central business districts.

Image Credit: Hamilton Houston Lownie 

state emergency managers, many cities around the country are closing schools as part of an emotional and controversial process of consolidating students. Much ongoing debate has centered around the educational implications of shifting students from school to school but, excepting thoughtful pieces like Amanda Erickson's recent

In cities like Washington, D.C., laws that require local governments to offer empty school buildings to charter schools before affordable housing developers have left many buildings in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods vacant. These buildings, which often have historical and emotional ties to the neighborhood, could help address the lack of affordable housing in areas where new arrivals are displacing and out-pricing longtime residents as school buildings' layouts provide ample space and the potential for a mixture of larger and smaller, sustainable units. In cities where municipal authorities have been able to expedite the conversion of former schools and build community support, such as Kansas City, Grand Rapids, Mich., and Atlanta, developers who were wooed by tax incentives have contributed to the building of hundreds of units. While some difficulties emerge from the process of renovating classroom space into living space and some buildings are determined to be unable for repurposing, the ability of developers and community groups to create low-cost units and make better use of empty spaces than charter schools or other enterprises that have traditionally been given preference over affordable housing and cannot afford to inhabit and renovate old schools. As more school budgets are slashed and demographics shift, the number of uninhabited school buildings is likely to increase. Amidst this reality and the need for inclusive housing near vibrant urban cores, lawmakers and local officials may want to enact new ordinances that spur development of affordable housing for residents of neighborhoods that were once served by the vacant schools now collecting dust in cities across America.

Pulling the Lever for Affordable Housing in 'Backyard Laboratories'

This blog often examines affordable housing decisions made by agencies and affirmed by judges. Today, we turn to the role played by voters in effectuating, or obstructing, affordable housing policies in their communities.

Photo Credit: MassDevelopment 

If states are, as Justice Brandeis famously stated, the "laboratories of democracy", then cities and towns are undoubtedly the lab's test tubes. Those citizens who do actually head to the polls during local elections are often deeply invested in issues that affect the quality of life, physical space, and property in their neighborhoods and vote to express their opinions about the type of community they want to shape. Among the more contentious measures to grace local ballots, right below tax identified by scholars like Dr. C. Theodore Kobel of Virginia Tech's Center for Housing Research. When faced with voters that does not want an influx of affordable housing beyond the state and federal required minimums, many cities and towns green-light mixed-income projects or circumvent placing the proposal on the ballot, but some municipalities require a ballot measure. The affordable housing proposals in the central Massachusetts community of Devens present an example of an effort to revive previously defeated affordable housing initiatives at the local level.
overrides and petition initiatives, are affordable housing proposals. Proposal after housing proposal has been decisively defeated in many local elections, illustrating a disconnect between likely voters' public opinion poll responses favoring more affordable housing units and actual voting behavior, representative of the "not in my backyard" phenomena- or NIMBYism-

Photo Credit: MassDevelopment 

Devens itself is a noteworthy story of mixed-use redevelopment. The site is a 4,400 acre former military base that closed in 1996 and was subsequently bought by MassDevelopment, an economic development organization, with help from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Since MassDevelopment took began Devens's redevelopment, nearly 100 businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies have opened in the project, employing more than 3,200 people in the semi-rural towns of Ayer, Harvard, and Shirley. In recent years, developers sought to include more housing in Devens, leading to a proposal to convert the property's abandoned Vicksburg Square barracks into a housing complex with 80 percent of the 246 apartments reserved as affordable units, many of them targeted toward elderly and veteran tenants (MassDevelopment's projects across the state have included affordable projects like Village Hill Northampton). However, in April 2012, voters in two of the three towns (Ayer and Harvard) that have voting power over development in Devens rejected the Vicksburg Square plan by a 2 to 1 margin, causing the Boston-based developer to abandon the project. The 2012 vote was the third time an affordable housing proposal was shuttered by voters since 2006. Unanimity of the three towns, each of which hold veto power to block attempts to change the former base's zoning rules, is required to approve any future housing developments. Immediately after the vote, the future of affordable housing in Devens seemed in jeopardy, but MassDevelopment has recently announced plans for new affordable housing development on another Devens parcel that would not require zoning variances and would not be subject to the towns' veto powers (developer bids for the new project are due May 24). The efforts in Devens, while unique because of the public-private partnership procedures, can serve as a model for other communities encountering stiff resistance to affordable and mixed-income development to be resilient in the face of NIMBY opposition and work within existing zoning and permitting schemes to achieve affordable housing solutions.

The New Horizontal Frontier of Transit-Oriented Affordable Development

Image Credit: Enterprise Community 

Public transit cheerleaders seem to racking up victories as more cities- even places like Denver, San Diego, and Phoenix where the car is king- implement new or improved public transit systems in the effort to encourage sustainability in our auto-centric culture. Transit projects have been a boon to the redevelopment of once-disconnected urban corridors, with attractive mixed-use centers blending workspaces, high-end commercial activity, and desirable residences cropping up at every turn. But concerns about the lack of low and moderate-income options amidst the surge of redevelopment have directed the conversation toward linking affordable housing and improved transit since the Government Accountability Office released their 2009 report entitled "Affordable Housing in Transit-Oriented Development", which recommended increased collaboration between HUD and the DOT-FTA and more state and local support of transit-centered affordable development. See GAO 09-871. While the report praised California's Housing and Emergency Shelter Trust Fund Act (encouraging the development of 1,800 affordable units close to transit) and Portland's Transit-Oriented Development Property Tax Abatement (reducing affordable housing developers and property owners' operating costs and supporting construction of hundreds of affordable units on underutilized lots in transit-oriented areas), the GAO identified more local support for affordable housing and even affordable housing requirements as "key practices" by the GAO. See, e.g. Cal. Health & Safety Code §§ 53560 et seq. (2009); Or. Rev. Stat. § 307.600 (2009). The vertical structure of housing and development and transportation agencies at all levels has precluded meaningful cooperation between these sectors and, as former U.S. House Subcommittee Chair on HUD Rep. John Oliver (D-MA) stated, inexplicably viewed "transportation, housing, and energy policy the federal, state, and local levels as separate spheres with little or no coordination for too long."

This lack of coordination has contributed to distressing consequences. According to a report filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center and Housing Virginia, low and moderate-income households in low-density development spend nearly double on transportation costs than their centrally-located counterparts. These residents, who have been priced out of transit-oriented neighborhoods, are isolated from the places in which they work, resulting in expensive and inefficient commutes. Exclusion of affordable housing from transit-oriented development (TOD) often places affordable units in location with little access to employment opportunities  and prevent low and moderate-income residents from seeking employment and deprives centrally-located areas of a full workforce. Affordable TOD advocates have lauded state and local governments' incentives to developers to reserve a certain percentage of affordable units in transit-oriented projects. In addition to the California and Portland laws, the New Jersey Transit Village Initiative has placed housing at the center of a statewide transportation overhaul and regional transit authorities in Atlanta and the Bay Area are working with housing and planning associations to create funds to construct new affordable housing along vital transit lines (MARTA and BART, respectively). State and local coordination mirrors Washington's new rhetoric to enhance horizontal communication between congressional housing and transportation committees, exploration of federal joint development projects, and a recognition that affordable housing and accessible transit are inextricably linked. Does this new horizontal collaboration mean long-term commitment to including affordable housing in TOD? Only time will tell as an increasingly urbanized U.S. reaches the next station.

'Reclaiming' the Reality of Beautiful Affordable Housing in Detroit

Image Credit: Michigan Live 

The woes of urban blight and decline in the city of Detroit need very little preamble. Years of media clips, shocking documentaries, and a host of "ruin porn" that runs the gamut from raw to opportunistic have painstakingly archived the hard times of the former "Paris of the Midwest." Many of the more than 50,000 Detroit homes that have been abandoned for an extended period of time are being demolished to make way for nascent efforts to rebuild Detroit beyond the still-thriving cultural institutions, galleries, trendy restaurants, and sporting arenas of Midtown. Everything from artists' colonies to urban farms have been proposed in the tracts of the city left vacant by the demolition and deconstruction. However, affordable housing advocates face a rare opportunity in the new urban landscape formed by this deconstruction. Not only does Detroit now have considerably more physical space to accommodate the housing needs of low-income Detroiters
(recent figures estimate that more than 300,000 of the city's residents are unemployed), but the abundance of materials salvaged from once-opulent homes that are properly deconstructed can challenge the notion that affordable housing must be purely function or only aesthetically inoffensive and not architecturally significant and beautiful.

Image Credit: Warm Training Center 

WBUR's Here and Now recently profiled the fallout of Detroit's demolition efforts- exurban landfills filled with home parts that could be reused and recycled. Host Robin Young's guest, Bob Chapman of the Warm Training Center, advocated for the Detroit Works Project's favored process of deconstruction, by which vacant homes are not merely demolished but instead are salvaged and sold or donated for use in new construction. Some of these "home parts" are hallmarks of yesterday's building craftsmanship that cannot be replicated- copper fittings, dentil moldings, and ornate fireplaces come to mind- are relatively inexpensive to remove but are tremendously valuable. While the potential for these materials to be used in rehabbed Corktown lofts and other pockets of market-rate gentrification is obvious, a collection of nonprofits, such as the Architectural Salvage Warehouse, are partnering with developers to set aside some of the elegant fixtures reclaimed from deconstruction (and the alternative practice of "skimming") to be made available to low and moderate-income families who are participating in Detroit's revival. The effort to preserve building materials that were once the height of luxurious design for sustainable, affordable housing that seeks to preserve elements of past grandeur is more than just good policy in an economically troubled region with a rare combination of high demand for low-income housing and plenty of space for new units. It is a strong reminder that the functionality of affordable housing does not have to displace form and that quality architecure of the past can be made more accessible in the present when used to include people of all income levels in the next chapter of a great American city.

Site-Specific Designations are Ready for Their Close-Up

Last week, KCET's "Laws that Shaped L.A." series turned its focus toward the myriad of exceptions- in the form of special overlays and site-specific designations known as Q, T, and D conditions- to the Los Angeles Zoning Code that present a more complex picture of the city's zoning regulations than a quick glance at the traditional Euclidian model would suggest. See Ordinance 139901. According to James Brasuell, more than 60% of the City of Los Angeles is affected by these overlays, creating actual Angeleno zoning and land use policies that are quite different from their appearance on paper. Proponents of these designations, the most common of which are "Q conditions" that place restrictions on developable lots to ensure compatibility with surrounding properties, claim that they allow for the flexibility necessary in an urban environment like L.A. that are not always well-suited to the Euclidian patterns most commonly used in the suburbs. Examples of Q condition "successes" include restrictions in the rapidly changing Echo Park neighborhood than require commercial properties to have direct street frontage, encouraging walkability and busting the Southern California strip mall stereotype. Opponents argue that the "exceptions" to zoning that have

Image Credit: Los Angeles Dep't of City Planning

effectively become the Los Angeles rule hinder transparency and consistency in the zoning approval process and favor those with intimate knowledge of the Zoning Code's inner workings, which is a veritable maze to navigate. Still others have charged that the many exceptions make the Code's true policy aims too opaque and muddle the worthy cause of shaping an L.A. cityscape that more closely mirrors urbanist goals such as walkability, access to transit, less dependency on cars, etc. and have contributed to the proliferation of the City's and region's sprawling, erratic, and auto-centric development.

Brasuell reports that the quiet furor raised over the more arcane aspects of the Zoning Code has resulted in the City recruiting various consulting firms to assess the Code and provide recommendations about a overhaul to increase Code transparency and predictability. Possible solutions may draw inspiration from the much-lauded Denver model, which is "a 'context-based code' hybrid between Euclidian and form-based codes." Such a shift would still allow for flexibility in a city that is both vast in land area and diverse in population and needs while steering away from a model where more than half of the city's lots are affected by Code exceptions and provisions that are unknown to many going through the approval process. As Los Angeles is likely not the only city with so many "hidden" zoning designations, perhaps the city's consideration changes to its zoning code will be the impetus for other municipalities lacking transparency to entertain the possibility of hybrid zoning.