Housing the Aging Baby Boomers: Implications for Local Policy

Most elderly want to age in place. Yet, most elderly live in suburban and rural communities ill-suited to meet the changing aging-related demands. This paper discusses various issues communities need to address when balancing the demands of aging baby boomers against those of younger households. Accommodating changes in life stage needs requires revising building and zoning codes to permit mixed use and mixed density development incorporating greater varieties of housing units and easier accessibility. Developing support arrangements for naturally occurring retirement communities will become important for state and local governments. A significant number of aging adults will move to locales with natural and augmented civic amenities. Such migration is double-edged; features that attract "gray gold" also attract needy elderly. Finally, affordable housing will be an issue for a growing number of elderly, calling for targeted tax and financial assistance policies for lower income elderly homeowners. Working Paper 08-0

Quantifying the impacts of regulatory delay on housing affordability and quality in Austin, Texas

textRegulatory delay during site plan review of multifamily projects in Austin has three primary impacts: 1) it generates unexpected development costs which increases housing prices over-time; 2) it stifles innovation and decreases quality of development; and 3) it promotes exurban growth. These impacts reduce affordability and quality of life for all Austinites and thwart the goals of the Imagine Austin comprehensive plan. As regulatory delays have increased remarkably since 2009, strong rent growth has compensated for this growing uncertainty throughout the Austin market. If regulatory delays are eliminated and developers receive approvals for multifamily projects within the 120 day mandate instead of the 223 day average, renters could see relief of 4-5% on their rent, or an average of $60 per month or$720 annually in Central Austin. Interviews with 14 Austin-area residential developers confirm these delays, costs, and impacts on their projects. On average it takes 3.5 additional months to receive site plan approvals in Austin in addition to the code mandated four month cycle. Austin's peer cities fare differently. The average delay in Denver, Colorado is three weeks, and is just several days in Raleigh, North Carolina. Whereas land use regulations theoretically generate positive externalities, delays in administering those regulations generate no benefits to the community. During this unforeseen 3.5 months, developers accrue unexpected costs such as legal fees, and developer overhead which includes the opportunity costs of not pursuing other deals. Construction costs increase during delays, and developers must continue to pay for land options and carry costs. In the short-term, developers pay for these unexpected costs out-of-pocket, and by reducing construction costs, which can result in lower quality materials or amenities. Unexpected costs roll into the project's overall budget, resulting in more expensive development projects. More expensive projects require higher rents in order to maintain the development team's expected yield on cost. Further, interviews with urban designers and civil engineers reveal that regulatory delay stifles private sector innovation in the built environment. Developer interviews and case studies suggest that regulatory delay promotes exurban growth instead of urban infill in the Austin metropolitan area.Community and Regional Plannin

Exurban housing development in the Winnipeg-Selkirk corridor

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Contributing and constraining factors to collaborative land use planning: Consequences of proposed housing development in and around the New River Gorge National River

In recent years, population increases in gateway communities has led to developers wanting to development adjacent to public lands. Although gateway community developments provides economic benefits such as increases in jobs and tax revenues, the population increase can cause a negative change in the landscape of the public land. As a result, public land managers are approaching more collaborative ways to engage in land use planning.;The purpose of this study was to assess the level of support for collaborative land use planning in and around the New River Gorge National River in Fayetteville, WV, particularly focused on the context of rapid population growth in the Fayetteville area. This qualitative analysis used a triangulation method consisting of newspaper articles, documents, and 17 semi-structured interviews of individuals most directly involved in the New River Gorge housing development issue. From that information, we were able to identify an increased need to participate in collaborative land use planning both in the National Park Service (NPS) and stakeholders. We noticed several constraints to collaborative land use planning such as human and financial capacity and community resistance as well as how groups such as the Transition Team and the New River Working Group can better enhance collaborative land use planning efforts. Finally, we identified several keys to successful collaborative land use planning such as building relationships and better NPS engagement. For that reason, public land use managers and planners will be able to work with community members and with their help, make more effective policies and planning decisions

Rural Georgia: To Be or Not to Be Zoned

A variety of public policies in Georgia can influence a community’s economic development potential. Zoning is one of these policies. In 1983, the Georgia State Constitution gave individual counties home rule power to conduct zoning and planning activities. The Georgia Planning Act of 1989 mandated that all communities in Georgia adopt a comprehensive plan, but did not require adoption of a zoning ordinance to enforce, or implement, the plan. As of 2001, 63 counties in Georgia, all rural, have not adopted a zoning ordinance. Community leaders of non-zoned counties often find it challenging to convince their citizens of real benefits to zoning. Opponents of zoning often consider such regulation an unnecessary governmental intrusion on their property rights. Zoning advocates often cite quality-of-life advantages, such as protecting homeowners from unwanted uses next door, but such advantages vary in the eye of the beholder and sometimes do not provide enough incentive to sway the opposition. The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate whether there are economic development benefits related to zoning. Given that an unlimited number of factors affect a community’s economic development potential, it is not possible to state with certainty that just one factor is responsible for a community’s economic development progress. In other words, one factor, such as a specific public policy, cannot be the sole explanation for a community’s development. However, economic development patterns may be observed when comparing communities with one of these factors to communities without. This investigation sought to compare counties with a zoning policy to counties without one.Georgia Rural Economic Development Center (GREDC) at East Georgia Colleg

FIRST SUBURBS IN THE NORTHEAST AND MIDWEST: ASSETS, CHALLENGES, AND OPPORTUNITIES

This article examines the decline of first suburbs, the older inner-ring suburbs closest to cities that grew up before or immediately after World War II. As families leave these areas for the expanding outer suburbs, the tax base shrinks and poverty and failing schools result. Inner suburbs lack the sophisticated governmental structures of cities to combat these problems, and without a shift in investment policies, first suburbs will continue to suffer

FIRST SUBURBS IN THE NORTHEAST AND MIDWEST: ASSETS, CHALLENGES, AND OPPORTUNITIES

This article examines the decline of first suburbs, the older inner-ring suburbs closest to cities that grew up before or immediately after World War II. As families leave these areas for the expanding outer suburbs, the tax base shrinks and poverty and failing schools result. Inner suburbs lack the sophisticated governmental structures of cities to combat these problems, and without a shift in investment policies, first suburbs will continue to suffer

Culturally responsive school leadership: Examining White male principals’ practices

K-12 principals must enact culturally responsive school leadership to close the opportunity gaps Black students and economically disadvantaged students experience. Critical race theory, the key model, and culturally responsive school leadership theory form the conceptual framework for this phenomenological study. The overarching research question for the study is as follows: How do Whiteness and masculinity influence the enactment of culturally responsive school leadership by White male K-12 principals in exurban school settings? Interviews, school handbook policy analysis, and examinations of participants’ professional social media posts provide data to critique the actions of four White male principals in Midwestern, exurban public schools. Four cross-cutting themes emerged as study results: personal to instructional critical reflection, social justice professional development, challenging an exclusionary school practice, using school based communication, and viewing White masculinity as privilege and a responsibility to support Black students and economically disadvantaged students. Conclusions suggest that participants acknowledge White heterosexual male privilege without deliberately using it to create humanizing school environments, unintentionally engage minoritized students and families, and implement superficial inclusive practices. Implications can inform pedagogical choices of university education leadership preparation programs and educational leaders’ and White male principals’ actions

Evaluating Conservation Effectiveness and Adaptation in Dynamic Landscapes

Rissman talks about evaluating conservation easement effectiveness requires interdisciplinary research that reaches beyond legal analysis to examine how easements influence human behaviors, which subsequently influence environmental conditions. Conservation easement effectiveness is not a fixed target, but is influenced over time by social and ecological landscape change. The promise of perpetuity is central to the appeal of conservation easements within the conservation movement

Long-Term Affordable Housing Strategies in Hot Housing Markets

This paper inventories strategies for maintaining affordable housing toward perpetuity in hot markets in an increasing number of locales. Long-term affordable housing strategies answer the call to make affordable housing resources last longer as federal funding for affordable housing diminishes, rental affordability programs expire, and owners prematurely buy their way out of affordable mortgages. The need is especially acute in hot-market cities, like New York City, that have seen large development programs end without any adequate replacements. The strategies span rental and homeownership delivery mechanisms, subsidy and equity sharing, cooperatives and community governance, land regulation, extending existing termed programs, and amassing funds to sustain affordable housing, with a focus on producing long-term affordable units through inclusionary zoning. Interviews with national policymakers and experienced affordable and mixed-income housing developers bring new light to the success of these mechanisms.This study finds that neither relying on inclusionary zoning nor extending affordable housing programs should be considered a replacement for federal subsidies. Innovating new programs means setting numbers of units produced against longevity, affordability and occupants' capacity to generate equity. Recommendations are given first in terms of challenges, tensions, trade-offs and new questions that these strategies create, and then to specific actors in the policymaking arena. Nonprofits should focus on monitoring long-term affordability and accountability. Municipalities and local governments should better regulate sources and uses of housing trust funds, focus on helping fund first-time homebuyers, consider input from local developers, consider long-term inclusionary zoning regulation, and monitor productivity and long-term regulation. Policymakers and researchers should consider why potential homebuyers have selected riskier subprime mortgage products over more secure equitysharing products and might want to better advertise equity-sharing options. Finally, New York City should expand its voluntary inclusionary program to more neighborhoods and better track its production and longevity