Here in Portland, ME we are having a housing shortage. We have developers who are ready to build, and there is plenty of demand for new housing. But no matter what part of the city somebody wants to build in, the existing residents do everything they can to stop it. Why are they so against having new housing?
Because I like things just fine in my neighborhood already. Plus I don’t really want more poor, morally deficient people hanging around, dirtying up the place.
because it might bring “those people” near them.
Affordable housing is often perceived as a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) that reduces property values and attracts an “undesirable” element (i.e. “poor people”).
A basic tenet of real estate is that you don’t want to own the most expensive house in the neighborhood.
Also keep in mind that “low income housing” tends to be apartments and townhouses, which are undesirable in a neighborhood of single family suburban homes.
By ‘affordable housing’, do you just mean new housing, or do you mean low-income housing or housing built to rent/sell for significantly less than the existing neighbors they’ll be next to? A lot of people don’t want low-income housing right next to them because it’s perceived as dragging in various crime from vandalism to drug dealing to thefts. And in any case putting lower rent/cost housing next to higher cost housing tends to drive prices down, which people who’ve invested in their homes don’t like. They might not be opposed to having new housing somewhere, but don’t want it right next to them, which can lead to the situation where everyone agrees it’s a good idea in general but no particular spot can get approval.
It’s simply economic self-interest. If the supply of housing increases then the price of existing housing (owned by the existing homeowners) will go down or at least not increase as fast.
If you’ve got a housing shortage, existing property owners will frequently oppose increasing supply. That means a reduction in their property’s value, and therefore less resale or rental income. If you tack on the word “affordable” it’s even worse – now you’re telling property owners that you want poor people to move into their neighborhood! (Excuse me while I clutch my pearls.)
The NY Times recently ran an interesting article about the approach used to handle this in Connecticut.
Basically the state passed a law requiring municipalities to ensure that 10% of their housing stock was “affordable” according to a certain income formula. Exactly how this was done was left up to each community. The stick they used was that if a community failed to do this, their zoning power would basically be forfeited and rapacious developers allowed to erect whatever the hell they want, as long as the affordability mandate was met.
Of course, CT’s housing market is not nearly as troubled as a lot of others, especially in places like New York City and San Francisco.
It’s particularly controversial now because of the administration’s push to require low-income housing in certain relatively affluent areas (including litigation in some places) and to constrain the use of criminal background checks by prospective landlords.
Wow. So because the government discriminates against minorities by arresting them at a disproportionately high rate, the government makes it illegal discrimination to use arrest and conviction records when deciding who to rent to? That’s some prime doublethink right there.
Because “they” don’t deserve it. They are poor because they are lazy and expect everything to be given to them without “working hard for it like I did” (or like my daddy did).
One reason, not nearly as selfish as suggested already, could be traffic congestion. And that’s not limited to “affordable” neighborhoods, either. There’s a development of $300K homes going in not to far from where I live. It appears to include widening of the state road immediately adjacent to allow for turn lanes, which tells me there probably won’t be traffic lights installed. That particular stretch of road has frequent accidents because, apparently, 40MPH is just undoable by some drivers. Add these additional residents trying to get into or out of their neighborhood, and things could get ugly in short order.
But, yeah, most likely, it’s all about property values and “those people” - whoever they may be.
Only Lithuanians move into those places.
If that were the reason then there would be objection to bringing high paying new jobs into a community–which would attract new residents.
It also means the kids of low income parents suddenly showing up in the local schools.
I suspect the negative reaction is much more closely tied to property value than “those people.” Homeowners don’t want a lot of things in their backyard even though it’s a net positive for society. Windmills, railways, highways and Wal-Mart are all fine for the community, but not in my backyard! And it’s got noting to do with “those people.”
Yeah, you want those people of Walmart stopping by to borrow a cup of sugar?
At its best, affordable housing has a higher population density and that’s usually undesirable because of issues like traffic*. By its nature of being “affordable” it has a lower selling price than the average market and that drives down prices nearby.
At its worst, affordable housing is a euphemism for residents with higher rates of poverty, drug use and crime.
- I have personal experience of this myself. The local affordable housing development is actually kind of upscale and seems to have attracted young professionals more than anyone else. But in order to make it affordable, it was built with half the number of parking spots it needed so they’re parking all over the street. What used to be used as a bike lane/pedestrian lane is now being used for parking and I’ve had to adjust my walking route to find a safe way of getting to work. I feel really bad for the people right next to it - their backyard used to look at a wooded lot with a single house and is now looking at the bedroom windows of three-story townhouses.
Business owners usually don’t have to ask permission - but there is plenty of grousing after the fact. Job growth in the Bay Area has been booming, traffic is more congested, and people are fed up.
Kinda ironic, they built a “affordable housing” apt building in San Jose for teachers. Turns out, no teachers earn so little as to qualify, except maybe a couple of Subs.
By and large, either the housing is in a shit neighborhood, in which case it turns into slums- or a good one, in which case people lie and cheat about their income to get in.
It doesnt seem to fix anything.
WRT education, ISTR reading many times that the single most predictive factor in local school performance is average household income. (Sorry, didn’t google to confirm.) Likely magnified by the practice of funding schools largely through local RE taxes.
I lived in a town a while back where they grossly underestimated the potential impact of somewhat affordable housing. Small suburb with mostly middle-upper middle income single family homes. There was a large area going to be developed. Folk opposed any retail or light industrial, so a developer put up a couple hundred townhomes which were not cheap, but were well below the average home price. The stupid town planners predicted no more than single digit increases in the school populations. Cue hijinks when several hundred new students enrolled in a system that was already at or near capacity…