The Truth Behind the Affordable Housing Crisis: Why Homes Are Becoming Impossible to Afford
Download MP3Overview:
- Explore an often overlooked factor in why affordable housing is difficult to build, particularly for small builders.
- The issue revolves around high permit fees and impact fees that make smaller housing units, like cottages, financially unfeasible.
Featured Story:
- A letter to the editor by Dick Nson, a real estate consultant with 43 years of experience, highlights his personal story of trying to build affordable housing in Oregon.
- Dick is a member of the Build Small Coalition and is working on a project to build four cottages for lower-income seniors.
The Issue:
- Dick’s plan to build 400-square-foot cottages for $123 per square foot hit a roadblock with $49,000 in permit and impact fees per unit.
- This high cost per unit is a significant barrier to affordable housing construction.
Comparative Example:
- A nearby 9-bedroom, 4,000-square-foot house had the same $50,000 permit fee, but it’s easier to absorb this cost in a larger, more expensive home.
- Smaller projects like Dick’s cottages cannot absorb the same fees, making the math unworkable for affordable housing.
The Bigger Picture:
- The episode explores whether this issue is intentional, whether it's a barrier to building smaller homes, or whether it's a result of inefficient policies that make affordable housing harder to achieve.
Call to Action:
- Share your thoughts in the comments: Is this system intentional, or is it a failure to incentivize affordable housing development?
