It’s pretty lame that the only solutions ever explored in most housing discussions, this article included, are more brakes and handouts for developers. And that while national-level trends get quick mention, the vast majority of this article functions as an indictment of an extremely modest attempt at slightly-below-market-rate inclusion requirements as being too burdensome.
We know that no level of stimulus for developers will ever cause housing costs to fall over the long term. Even developers don’t make such claims. We know that any trickle-down effect that new luxury stock has on the cost of older housing does not offset overall market movement. We therefore know that no amount of industry stimulus can ever ease the pain of the housing crisis, that it can at best only slow it’s exacerbation by willingly feeding the political beast of real estate capital.
Given these hard facts and the dire socio-economic danger they pose to city residents, why is Anthony Effinger of Willamette Week devoting most of this article’s word count to claims sourced exclusively from the development industry? One real estate analytics firm in Virginia and two real estate investment firm principals are not dependable sources for a journalist seeking to prioritize the well-being of Portlanders.
Well said. It’s like asking wall street how to fix investing. Companies with a vested interest in not solving the problem to keep their margins high, unsurprisingly, will say good solutions are bad and useful solutions that would harm their prospects shouldn’t be considered at all.
Building affordable, publicly owned housing during a downturn is a fantastic way to get a bargain on construction costs and also keep the economy humming. In a downturn, there will also be a lot more developers or builders happy to take public affordable housing projects with lower margins. Use the market!
The irony is that developers building housing that meets Oregon’s mandated affordability requirements are still turning a profit, it’s either just not as much profit as they make in other endeavors they’re occupied with or they’re foregoing bids in protest. If the city was willing to run it’s own public development firm inside the Housing Bureau rather than merely issue grants and incentives to independent developers, the public could actually flip our own new construction at a profit to landlords if we’re really that allergic to publicly owned housing.
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas!
