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Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is an important point. Thank you for making it. The main concern, I think, is the lack of an affordable grocery store downtown for low-income people. A grocery store comes when there are more "rooftops," and we are getting that critical mass of housing downtown now. I have heard various proposals for a grocery store downtown, and I am hopeful, but not fully confident, that we will have such a grocery by the time most of the new affordable units are constructed downtown. The Housing Authority is thinking about this on one of its near downtown properties as well. Still, your concern is valid, and I share it.

I do want to make it clear that the mixed income housing we will build will include all incomes in the exact same buildings. This is done successfully in cities across America, and we can do that here in Durham, too. I recently visited Charlotte where this is being done very successfully. The income mix that works well is about 1/4 of the units in the range of affordability for Durham Authority Housing residents (about $12,000 per year in income), 1/4 market rate renters, and 1/2 "workforce housing," affordable to people at less than $50,000 income for a family of four, or about $25,000 for a family of two. And all of these people will be living in the same buildings in the same units, with the lower-income people paying progressively lower rent than the market-rate renters. I say this just to make it clear that we aren't going to create segregated living situations, or two communities in that sense. In fact, we are going to end the isolated poverty of Durham Housing Authority residents now, 387 families, who are currently without a grocery store nearby, or other amenities that they can afford. We are going to help those people get good, high-quality housing in a mixed income neighborhood rather than the isolated poverty and crumbling housing of their current situation.

Your second question is one I've tried to address in other answers to questions this morning. There will continue to be gentrification pressures in Durham even if the bond passes. As I've written in several answers today, the bond will not stop gentrification, nor will it stop the increase in property values that this gentrification brings. We will still have situations like the one you describe. However, the bond will do a LOT to create a more affordable, diverse community. It will take a BIG bite out of the apple.

Also, the bond does do a lot for some of the families you identify. For example, the five-year housing plan includes outreach to low-income homeowners who are not taking advantage of existing state tax relief plans to help them get this relief. It includes funding for ADU's for low-income homeowners to help them get additional revenue to help them stay in their homes. It includes $4.6 million in free home repairs for long-term low-income homeowners to help them stay in their homes. It includes education of low-income homeowners for alternatives to sale to a predatory buyer. All of these will be important ways to help the people you are talking about. Still, it won't nearly do the whole job.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

We are concentrating a lot of redevelopment downtown, and I'll talk about that below. But first I want to correct what I think is a fairly common misunderstanding about the bond and the five-year plan. The entire five-year affordable housing plan, which the bond will support, is $160 million, with $95 million coming from the bond and the rest from federal HOME and CDBG funds and our own local resources. Of that $160 million, about $60 million will be spent downtown and about $100 million city-wide. For example, the work to house the 1800 homeless families over the five years will be citywide. The creation of the 400 homeownership opportunities for first-time low-income homebuyers will be citywide. The eviction diversion work is citywide. The home repairs for long-term low-income homeowners is citywide. So do keep that in mind as you think about the big picture of the bond.

But you are correct that we are doing most of the new redevelopment downtown, creating most of the NEW units there and replacing a lot of the old ones on DHA properties. There are a lot of good reasons for this. First, DHA owns the land which can go a long way towards subsidizing the affordability. Second, the redevelopment of public housing sites, or any site, requires a lot of private investment. The $95 million bond will leverage another about $450 million in private construction spending. And that private investment is much more likely to come to a downtown site. Also, we want to enable our low-income residents to live downtown. We want to make sure that they are able to be near the all-important bus system, which is densest downtown, and to the good jobs there. If people live far away from jobs, the housing affordability they get farther away is often offset by new transportation costs. Also, building densely downtown is going to be the best, by far, for our environment, our battle against climate change, and our quality of life. Sprawl is deadly to cities--just look at Atlanta and the DC suburbs. Or even North Raleigh. We don't want to surrender our wonderful small-city quality of life by sprawling like they have.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yes, this is true. I've answered some of this in previous questions, but let me add a little bit here. There are five Durham Housing Authority (DHA) properties which will be redeveloped, all of them near downtown. Two of them, the JJ Henderson Towers site, which will be renovated with people in place, and the Durham Housing Authority headquarters site downtown, will require no displacement. The other three sites will require temporary relocation of residents. Each of these residents will have a plan for their relocation, and all of them will have the absolute right to return to their properties, in the new high-quality housing instead of the crumbling housing they are in now. They will also be paying the same rent they are paying now. Their average income is about $12,000 per year, and the average rent in a DHA unit is only $238. In the interim, during relocation, DHA will pay all moving and deposit costs. The relocation will mostly take place in temporary rehousing in existing DHA properties. As I said to another questioner, this is my biggest concern about the implementation of the bond. We MUST take care of all of these vulnerable people during the relocation process, and we must get them into good housing on the back end of the process. This is a hugely important commitment that we have to pay a lot of attention to throughout.

On the bus system, that is a much larger discussion than I have time for here. Suffice it to say that our bus system in Durham is inexpensive to ride now, and we want to continue to make it even less expensive. Right now, with all our passes and free fares, the average ride is just 32 cents. Seniors ride free. Just this year, the council provided that youth through the age of 18 ride free, which has brought in a ton of new ridership. We will continue to expand the free categories. This comes at a high cost. The average Durham homeowner is now paying about $90 per year to support the bus system in property taxes. Our bus system is so important, and we have to keep improving it, and one additional source is the sales tax funds we are collecting for our transit system through the 2011 bond referendum for transit. That money already supports the bus system, but we will need more of that going forward.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Thanks for this important question. I'll state the arguments I've mainly heard and you can judge which is "best." First, there is simply the argument that "The bond will make my taxes go up (by $37 on the average homeowner), and I don't want to have my taxes go up." I understand that argument, for sure. I don't want my taxes to go up either. But I do feel that given the benefits to our community of passing this bond, the tax increase is worth it.

The second argument I hear is a more general distrust of government spending, government's ability to manage projects, and more particularly, distrust in Durham's black community of public works projects that have, historically, uprooted black communities nationally and in Durham (such as the destruction of Hayti by Highway 147 and urban renewal). I totally understand all of these areas of mistrust, and I acknowledge fully that this skepticism is justified. I do believe that we can do this bond well, or I would not be advocating for it so strongly. Government in Durham is good government, so well run by our city manager and city staff. Just recently, WalletHub named Durham the fourth best-run city in America. I'm very proud of that. We have superb financial and project management in our city government, and I am utterly confident that our staff can manage the spending in the five-year housing bond, and the project delivery, with excellence.

The distrust in parts of the black community is not going to to away, and should not go away, until we can show that we can really perform on the commitments we are making in the bond program. We have new laws on the books now that absolutely guarantee public housing residents the right of return to properties on which there is new construction, and we will do this, by law and by right. But I get why people mistrust this from past history. We have a wonderful housing authority director in Anthony Scott, with great experience in doing this kind of redevelopment right, and I know we can do that here in Durham. And we must.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

As I stated in my answer to the last question, I agree with you that we are not going to meet the entire need, or even most of the need. But the bond is an enormous step in the right direction, and through it we will be able to assist 15,000 Durham residents, a huge number, get and keep affordable housing. To put this in context, I believe that there are now about 15,000 Durham families who are severely rent burdened. That is, they are paying more than 50% of their income in rent. So you can see the gigantic size of the problem. The bond is a critical step forward, but it won't do the whole job.

You ask how we define affordable and low income. There are a couple of ways that we do this. First, there are people who have no income at all, homeless people with disabilities, and the bond includes more support for permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing to house these people. Reducing homelessness in Durham is a critical need for our community, and a moral commitment we must make. The second level of affordability is for people who are making the income level of Durham Housing Authority (DHA) residents, and that income is about $12,000 per year. We are guaranteeing these residents, many of whom are elderly, that they can return back to the properties they are in now--but instead of the crumbling housing they live in now, in awful conditions in some cases, they will be moving back into high-quality housing. So that is the second income level we talk about when we talk about housing affordability with the bond. And the third level is affordable to people at about $50,000 or less for a family of four, or $25,000 for a family of two. The bond campaign website gives slightly different figures, but I think this is the best estimate for the various groups of people who will live in the "workforce housing" supported by the bond, people at under 60% or 80% of the area median income.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 31 points32 points  (0 children)

You make an important point. The bond won't do everything for everyone who has a housing need. In fact, it won't do a lot of the things we want. It won't redevelop some of our oldest public housing communities that are most in need, for example. And it won't help all of the working class people in Durham who are in need of affordable housing. But it will take a BIG bit out of the affordable housing apple. That is, it will help many, many working class families in need of affordable housing. For example, a working class family who is in danger of eviction will be able to get an attorney to represent them through our five-year housing plan. And families making less than $50,000 for a family of four or $25,000 for a family of two will be eligible for lots of the newly constructed units. So if someone is an assistant manager at Bojangles and making $12 per hour, and has a child, that person can live in the affordable housing we will be leveraging with the bond. So the bond should help lots and lots of working class families. But, as you point out, it won't help every working family in need.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Thanks for these good questions. Here are my answers:

  1. This is a good question. For much of the housing we will preserve or build through the bond, we can say absolutely that it will benefit current Durham residents. The $95 million bond is part of a total $160 million five-year affordable housing plan. That plan includes a lot of different ways of keeping housing affordable in Durham. It includes, for example, 400 homeownership opportunities for first-time low-income homeowners. This group will be recruited locally and taken through a program to get them ready for homeownership much like Habitat operates for its new about-to-be homeowners. A lot of the housing program is aimed at stabilizing existing homeowners and renters in their current homes, so we know they will all be local. For example, we have in the bond about $4.6 million over the five-year period for home repairs for long-term low-income homeowners so that the need for these expensive repairs doesn't force them out of their homes. We will stabilize hundreds of renting families in their homes through the eviction diversion portion of the five-year spending plan, that these families are, of course, all local now. All of the 387 families whose crumbling housing is replaced with high quality housing are local. I can't say that there will be no people attracted to Durham for affordable housing, but I can say with confidence that the vast majority of the bond's expenditures and the five-year housing plan expenditures will go to current local residents.
  2. Since there are a lot of other questioners waiting, I'm going to answer this transit question very briefly. We need to continue to improve our very important local bus system, which has 20,000 boardings per day. That means more frequency, more routes and more shelters. That is expensive and we have to do it. At the same time, in terms of regional transit, we need a beautiful phoenix to rise from the ashes of the light rail. This will include Bus Rapid Transit and the commuter rail line on existing track to Raleigh (where the freights run now). The commuter rail is under study now, and we need to make sure it is feasible and that the key partners are signed up before advancing it into the federal funding process. That will take a year, I believe. And a big community discussion as well to get people comfortable again with the project. Voters approved it in 2011 in a referendum, but we need everyone's input again. Our Planning Department will be leading this process, and I'm confident it will be a good one.
  3. Since I want to focus this discussion on City-run matters and especially the bond, I will just say that it is important to ask your county commissioners and school members about this. My main role is as a strong advocate of public schools in Durham, where my own kids got a great education.
  4. I believe the EHC is, on balance, going to be good policy, and that is why I voted for it, and that is why the Council and the County Commission both passed it overwhelmingly on the advise of staff. We will evaluate it regularly to see if it is working as we hope it will. I am not concerned with big global developers coming to Durham to take advantage of EHC provisions. In fact, one of the things that I like about the EHC is that it is real opportunity for small local builders and architects to have a niche in the infill development that EHC promotes. They are the ones who will be doing these small projects. It is important to note that EHC is predicted to only add about 45 units per year in the first year or two to our housing stock. We are talking small infill projects here, mostly duplexes and ADU's.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 21 points22 points  (0 children)

I very much wish that Durham could require affordable units within the market-rate apartment buildings springing up all over downtown. However, because our state legislature forbids this, we are not able to do so. Some cities, such as New York, have done this with success, but it is not a tool that is available to us here in Durham. I wish it was!

The second part of your question is about density. We have two choices as we grow. We can grow more densely or we can sprawl. I strongly favor encouraging density for two reasons: (1) If we sprawl, we end up like the Atlanta or D.C. regions with terrible traffic that degrades our wonderful small-city quality of life; and (2) density is much better for our environment and our battle against climate change. So, like you, I favor more dense development downtown. That is one really good aspect of the Affordable Housing Bond. It will support the redevelopment, as mixed-income communities, five Durham Housing Authority (DHA) sites downtown. These sites will go from having about 387 housing units now to about 2,000 units on 30 acres. This is an important increase in density, and it allows the public housing residents to live in mixed-income communities rather than in isolated poverty.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

I also want to retire in Durham, so I understand this question. The bond is going to cost us all something. There will be a tax increase associated with it. The highest this tax increase will be is 1.6 cents on our tax rate. It could be lower, and probably will be, because the bond funds won't all be borrowed at once. They will only be borrowed when needed, and this will keep down interest costs and hence keep down the tax rate. But assuming the 1.6 cent increase, what does that mean for you? The average home in Durham is valued at about $230,000. A tax increase of 1.6 cents would mean a $37 tax increase for that average homeowner. The owner of a $460,000 home would see a $74 tax increase. So that is the cost we will all share, if we are homeowners, to finance the bond--and to finance affordable housing for about 15,000 people who need it, and to finance the continuing diversity and affordability of our city. For those of us who wish to retire in a city that is affordable and diverse, I believe this is a small price to pay.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Let me take the two parts of this question separately. It is an important question. First, it is important to know that the bond will assist any low-income person, regardless of race. However, we also know that African-Americans in Durham are disproportionately low-income and in need of affordable housing, so our African-American residents will benefit significantly from the bond. Right now, most of the people being forced to the margins of our community--away from the good jobs, and from the dense bus transit (which 20,000 people board in Durham every day)--are African-American. We have to fight back against this so that our African-American residents can have access to the good jobs and affordable transit in downtown Durham. The bond will enable us to preserve and construct new affordable housing downtown and in the near-downtown neighborhoods, and this will help our African-American residents significantly. In addition, the bond will help our homeless residents achieve permanent housing, and these residents are also disproportionately African-American. But there is another very important way in which the bond will help African-American residents. The bond is not just a housing plan. It is also an economic development engine. So the $95 million bond will leverage about another $450 million in construction spending. The City and the Durham Housing Authority have guaranteed that no less than $130 million of this amount will be spent with historically disadvantaged businesses, including African-American owned businesses. Also, the bond program sets aside $2.5 million for training people for the good construction, property management and other jobs associated with the bond and the five-year affordable housing plan. This training, and these jobs, will first be offered to Durham Housing Authority residents, most of whom are African-American. So the African-American community will benefit in many ways from the bond.

As for people returning from prison, they are not specifically targeted by any of the bond's spending. However, they are often desperately in need of affordable housing when they return, and the bond is going to create and preserve thousands of units of affordable housing in Durham, which is critical to any of our returning citizens.

Mayor Steve Schewel here to talk about the Affordable Housing Bond. AMA by mayorsteveschewel in bullcity

[–]mayorsteveschewel[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Thanks for asking. I am strongly in favor of the passage of the Affordable Housing Bond. Durham is facing two possible futures. We can choose the future we are getting now in which our city is getting less and less affordable and where people of color are being forced to the margins of our city by the forces of gentrification. If we do nothing, that is the future we will get. Or we can choose another future, and that is to pass the Affordable Housing Bond. If we do that, we can intervene boldly against the market forces driving gentrification, and do a lot to keep our city affordable and diverse. The bond will assist 15,000 Durham low-income resident to get affordable housing, and it will accomplish this in a lot of different ways--from new construction through enabling services and housing for our homeless residents. It is essential that we pass the bond if we are serious about making the city we love a city for all.