March 17: What we’re reading this week

Some articles we found interesting this week:

  1. As Raleigh residents face displacement pressure, this anti-displacement tax fund is a public-private partnership designed to benefit legacy residents living in historically Black neighborhoods in Atlanta.

  2. Building housing or subsidizing the cost of housing (via rent or down payment assistance) for public employees is something Raleigh could consider funding like this rural NC community is doing.

  3. “Yes in God’s Backyard” legislation is starting to gain steam as a way to address housing affordability.

  4. After years of trending larger, average home size may be shrinking.  For comparison, the average size of a single-family home in 1950 was 985 square feet and by 1972 it was 1,634 square feet. Average house size continued growing through 2015 when it reached roughly 2,466.  That trend seems to be reversing since it has consistently shrunk to 2,179 in 2023.  Building smaller homes is one way to reduce the cost of housing.

  5. Can the Veteran Administration’s successful model for addressing Veteran Homelessness apply to civilian homelessness? More from Shelterforce.

  6. An Unlikely Collaboration: A Real Estate Agent Joins Community Organization to Help Voucher Holders. Also from Shelterforce.

  7. Zoning Reform, Now a Bipartisan Issue, Tries to Build a Bigger Tent. Via Bloomberg.

  8. In Housing Battles, Left-right Lines are Blurred. From CommonWealth Beacon.

  9. Issues around supply, regulatory restrictions and impacts on housing costs are not new.  Here is a study related to the Boston area from 2006. Had reforms taken place sooner in Boston, its housing crisis would not be as bad as it is today.  The same will be true in Raleigh if Council fails to act on reforms like the proposed upzoning along the New Bern Avenue BRT route and the 3 other proposed routes.  

  10. Rethinking Zoning to Increase Affordable Housing. From the Journal of Housing and Community Development.

     

Read the full March 17th newsletter here.

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March 31: The week ahead in Raleigh

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March 17: The week ahead in Raleigh