Housing
Balancing the need for safe & affordable shelter and incentivizing opportunities
Our vision for housing in Concord should tend towards an ownership and not a rental model – our residents are increasingly being consigned to rent indefinitely rather than to own their residence, and our Council need to make this a primary focus. Our need for new housing can be an opportunity to create both attractive domiciles and innovative financing mechanisms through which we can help more of our residents own their homes, where possible. We don’t want residents to be forced to leave Concord because of being “priced out” of their hometown, or to otherwise face hardship by paying a much higher proportion of their monthly income towards housing. We also don’t want to unduly infringe upon existing or potential property owners’ ability to pursue opportunities and a return on their investments, and we don’t want to disincentivize the creation of new housing. Additionally, we don’t want something as fundamental as a person’s need for shelter to be subject to speculation, as we’ve seen across the country with housing being bought up by BlackRock, Vanguard, and others, thereby exacerbating the price of housing for ordinary Americans. Finally, I think we can agree that there is a “community good” in having long-term residents continue to remain in their hometown without undue hardship.
We need to increase supply, both through fostering a hospitable business/regulatory environment for investors and creatively developing mechanisms for financing new developments.
There should be a new category of unit permitted for development that would be relatively-inexpensive (but safe and aesthetically-pleasing) and that would fill a need for those who cannot currently afford even a one-bedroom apartment rental at current market rates. Something the size of a dorm room or a small RV – a place to sleep, a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom/shower. Designs for these abound, and they’re able to be built in a cost-effective manner. The goal should be to have this tier of options available to those who want to spend approx. $800/mo to rent a safe, independent dwelling. This could also be built as units to be owned at very accessible prices. It would be critical to ensure that the areas where these are permitted and built are designed and implemented with safety and “livability” factors considered – proper design can ensure that they are an appealing addition to the community and do not bring negative, unintended consequences that we sometimes associate with low-income housing.
The City should work with other government agencies and private equity/insurance companies to create a fund that can finance new developments in ways that foster ownership by the residents of Concord – a sort of ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) on steroids. The residents of Concord would benefit directly through ownership of a portion of the new multi-unit housing developments that are permitted by the City. Development companies would be contracted to manage the construction, but we – the residents – would own these developments.
Besides the above ownership plan for the large-scale development of units, the City should also develop the financial wherewithal (through private-public partnerships) to aid residents in purchasing their homes, with the constraint that there be a determination that each loan or other allocation needs to have a high confidence level of being paid back or otherwise financially benefit the city. Our only focus as a city should not be on renting – there has been too much of a trend, mostly out of necessity, towards renting instead of owning one’s home. The nation is facing a steep decline in home ownership, but we at a local level can strive to provide more opportunities.
We should look into limiting the ownership of rental units of all types, including single-family homes, to individuals and entities that are under a to-be-determined size. Again, we don’t want immense financial organizations like Blackrock inserting themselves into our community by jacking-up prices on our residents.