Category Archives: density

Not bad, could be better: AARP’s take on BTV’s ‘livability’

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A willingness to consider home-sharing is among the key findings of a new AARP survey of 500 Burlington residents age 45 and older.

Burlington2When asked if they would be open to a home-sharing arrangement with a person who could provide services in order for them to continue living in the home, 56 percent of the respondents said yes. That was up from 36 percent in an AARP survey nine years ago.

The new response suggests a pent-up demand for more accessory dwelling units on properties where older Burlingtonians want to age in place — which most respondents clearly wish to do. Seventy-nine percent “strongly agreed” when asked about their desire to remain in their current home, and 80 percent rated Burlington as a good or excellent place for older people to live.

The home-sharing finding suggests that current services, mentioned in a previous post, are undersubscribed. It also points to a need for a supportive regulatory climate for accessory dwelling units, which are, after all, an important piece in the chronic puzzle of how to come up with more affordable housing.

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Another housing finding of note: Asked their opinion about building moderate- to low-income housing units in vacant lots in Burlington, 67 percent responded favorably, with 32 percent opposed. These numbers might have been slightly higher/lower is the question had used the contemporary term of choice, “affordable housing,” which has a nicer ring but which is, we have to admit, something of a euphemism.

Asked for their concerns about what might make it difficult to age in place, “high cost of living” topped the list, but it remains unclear which kinds of costs, specifically, are at issue.

Besides housing, transportation and “community engagement” were spheres covered by the telephone survey, which comprised 20-minute telephone interviews of randomly selected people. The margin of error was 4 percent. To see the full survey, “The Path to Livability: A Citizen Survey of Burlington, Vermont,” click here.

A presentation of the survey results by researcher Joanne Binette was made in AARP’s Burlington office to an audience of about two dozen people, among them housing and transportation specialists.

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Older people in Burlington get around in multiple ways. Driving is still the main way (83 percent), but these people also walk (68 percent) and bike (41 percent) or take the bus (27 percent) at least some of the time.

Generally, they find it easy to get around even if they couldn’t drive (66 percent). The main drawback to bus service, they said, was the lack of weekend or evening service. (One set of bus concerns relates to schedules and routes, another to bus stops and access to them.)

Fifty-fiBurlington7ve percent said they would bicycle if conditions for cyclists were better.

But are the streets safe? Apparently they’re more so for bicyclists (51 percent said streets are safe for cyclists) than for people with disabilities (41 percent), older people (36 percent) or children (33 percent) or pedestrians (27 percent).

Respondents had opinions on improving sidewalks and bus service, but appeared to be relatively satisfied with educational and social activities available to them in Burlington.

 

 

NJ’s lessons for VT

affordable housing, density, fair housing, housing, housing crisis, integration, segregation, workforce housing, , , , , , ,

The Times’ Sunday editorial was a ringing endorsement of affirmatively furthering fair housing as put into practice in Mount Laurel, N.J. Mount Laurel, of course, was the epicenter of a fair housing lawsuit that resulted in state supreme court rulings in 1975 and 1983 known as the Mount Laurel Doctrine.

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Essentially, the doctrine held that every town must make room for people of all incomes and can’t legitimately exclude low or moderate income people through restricting planning and zoning policies. The Fair Share Housing Center, a primary litigant in the case that led to the Ethel Lawrence Homes in Mount Laurel that’s lauded by the editorial, calls it “one of the most significant civil rights cases in the United States since Brown v. Board of Education (1954).”

That statement might sound self-serving, but it has some credence, given that other states all over the country – including Vermont – have at least paid lip service to this principle. (For a quick summary of the Doctrine and how it resonates in Vermont, check out our previous blog post on this.

One thing that was missing from the editorial was any invocation of the incisive language in the New Jersey justices’ rulings. Like this, from Mount Laurel I:

“By way of summary, what we have said comes down to this. As a developing municipality, Mount Laurel must, by its land use regulations, make realistically possible the opportunity for an appropriate variety and choice of housing for all categories of people who may desire to live there, of course including those of low and moderate income. It must permit multi-family housing, without bedroom or similar restrictions, as well as small dwellings on very small lots, low cost housing of other types and, in general, high density zoning, without artificial and unjustifiable minimum requirements as to lot size, building size and the like, to meet the full panoply of these needs. Certainly when a municipality zones for industry and commerce for local tax benefit purposes, it without question must zone to permit adequate housing within the means of the employees involved in such uses…” (emphasis added)

Those guidelines are as apt today as when that opinion was written, in 1975 – 40 years ago!

Another thing missing from the editorial was anything more than a passing reference to complexities and controversies that attended efforts to implement the doctrine in municipalities across the state. It’s a long and tangled story, and while it’s true as the Times intones that “some local officials are working diligently to turn back the clock…” and that “Gov. Chris Christie and his allies in some of the state’s wealthy towns would like nothing more than to kill this remedy…” there is an added complication in many communities, and this one has resonance in Vermont, too.

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Some of the challenges New Jersey’ Sussex County faces in providing more affordable housing, according to this New Jersey Herald account, may sound familiar here:

“ ….a shortfall of utilities — sewer, water, electric — to accommodate more housing and population; and a lack of practical public transportation in the area that limits the ability for low- and moderate-income people to get to decent-paying jobs.

“But the most glaring problem is that with the population declining and the economy volatile, the county is not an ideal place for developers to invest.”

 

We’re full, so go somewhere else

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density1When someone says that a town or a city is “built out,” what does that mean? It often means simply that the speaker doesn’t want any more people moving in – even though it might be possible to design more space, in keeping with local standards, that would accommodate more people.

The common claim that a city has run out of room reflects not a physical reality, but rather, an exclusionary prejudice, as Emily Badger suggests in a thought-provoking piece in the Washington Post. She points to widely varying population densities of major “First World” cities (Seattle, 3,000 people per square mile; New York, 4,500; Paris, 9,500; London, 14,600). How can anyone in San Francisco, even with its topographical challenges, argue that that city is “built out” at a mere 5,400 people per square mile? In fact, according a Berkeley economist, the city could accommodate 30-40 percent more people without losing its character.

Building higher and shrinking parking lots can seem reasonable as planning options, but there are limits. In Burlington (2,730 people per square mile), for example, any building higher than about 12 stories would likely be seen as excessive, and no one is ready to enforce a dramatic reduction in vehicles plying the city’s roads. There is such a thing as overcrowding, too (HUD’s so-called Keating memo calls for a limit of two people per bedroom), but of course most American communities are nowhere near their limit.

The most densely populated municipality in Vermont is undoubtedly Winooski , about 4,800 people per square mile.

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And Winooski, when you meander through it, doesn’t come across as particularly dense – much of its 1.5 square miles is occupied by single-family lots, after all. It could get denser and still be less so than LA (6,000 people per square mile) or Madrid (12,100) – never mind Mexico City (25,100) or Jakarta (24,500).

Nationally, exclusionary land-use practices have had the effect of holding down housing supply and pushing up housing prices. Consider California, where housing prices began to soar above those in the rest of the country starting around 1970. One reason California diverged, according to an legislative analysis that came out earlier this year, is housing construction has been limited – by community resistance, environmental policies and other factors – in coastal urban areas. That has driven up prices there and inland as well.

The legislative analyst called for policy changes that would lead to significantly more housing along the coast. Here again, the suggested remedy for unaffordability was a familiar one: increase the housing supply. But does anyone believe that can be left simply to market forces?

Moreover, merely eliminating exclusionary policies and increasing density, while favoring more affordability, aren’t necessarily sufficient to promote inclusiveness, or integration. The pro-density strategy has to be combined with affirmatively fair housing, as Jamaal Green argues in this Shelterforce article.