By Casey Cook / Guest Editorial
Recent opinions published in this paper regarding affordable housing reflect the frustration for governing bodies throughout the Corridor. I can never remember a time when it was easy to put apartments in a mature neighborhood. There is simply too much pushback from the neighbors when a city attempts to encourage affordable housing in someone’s “backyard” – even if their backyard is several blocks away.
Grants to subsidize affordable housing are geared to a points system that is at odds with this political reality. Your chances of landing funding increase when you are on a bus line, near a park or within walking distance of a grocery store, for example. Planning commissions take the position that it is wrong to put a family “in the middle of nowhere,” which is defined as anywhere some of these criteria are unmet.
The Peninsula in Iowa City was the middle of nowhere when it began. It is one neighborhood that combines intensive multifamily development with single-family homes. I don’t think they had a bus line when it was originally developed, and even now it’s a long way from a grocery store – but the fact is that after some early missteps, it has evolved and it works.
Interestingly, the Johnson County Supervisors have floated the idea of putting affordable housing on the former poor farm at the intersection of Melrose and Highway 218. Predictably, they have been chastised for being insensitive, that this is too far out, that there are no services there.
According to Carolann Jensen, COO for the Iowa Finance Authority, most people at the low end of the income spectrum have access to a car and the lack of current public transportation is not a dealbreaker. The poor farm land is a five-minute commute to the largest hospital in Iowa, a Fareway grocery and West High. If that is the middle of nowhere, then we need to broaden our horizons.
The poor farm is one example of land that has the potential to accommodate affordable housing. I counted an additional 103 acres of commercial land in secondary locations that have languished on the market for at least 10 years. The Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission recently turned down a rezoning proposal on Scott Boulevard that included a mix of apartments for the same tired reasons.
Meanwhile, the Iowa City Council purchased six proposed one-bedroom “affordable” units behind City Hall for $1 million. Similarly constrained by the affordable housing criteria, the Housing Fellowship is purchasing 12,000 square feet of land a few blocks south of Burlington for just over $66 per square foot. Affordable housing begins with affordable land, but the closer you get to the central business district, the higher the land cost.
Understand that of the 103 acres cited above, there is not one acre that would sell for more than $8 per SF. In each case, all of the necessary infrastructure is in place to accommodate development. With few exceptions, this shovel-ready land that I believe is suitable for multifamily development is now paying farmland taxes.
Because the state requires that properties be assessed at their current use and not their zoned use, the city fails to recoup its considerable investment in the infrastructure that supports them. This is money we lose year after year.
Astute planners and the boards that govern development will recognize this problem and give greater consideration to supply, demand and financial feasibility. This, more than anything, will reduce the development pressure on core neighborhoods and foster the kind of housing that enables the people who work here to live here.
Mr. Cook is managing partner at Cook Appraisal, and a former member of the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission.
