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.
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!