Provide incentives for affordable housing, workforce housing, infill projects, or for life-cycle housing at or near job or retail centers, or for achieving an average net residential density of seven units per acre.
Best Practice of this action
Rating Guideline
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Offer tax-increment financing, land write-downs or other loan/grant tools for affordable housing, workforce housing, infill projects, or for life-cycle housing projects at or near (within ¼ mile of) job or retail centers. Report infill development/design standards and programs under BPA 5.5. |
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Offer a building permit fee discount or expedited permit review; use direct purchase & demolition; support a community land trust (CLT) affordable housing project. |
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Enact graduated density zoning; offer at least one incentive tool for affordable/workforce/life-cycle housing; report affordable housing as part of new residential development that has at least 10 units; create city-owned or managed workforce housing through a local Housing Redevelopment Authority (HRA); set up a CLT financing program. |
Resources
- One promising planning strategy (from Donald Shoup: 2008) to encourage voluntary land assembly of large enough sites to redevelop at higher densities is graduated density zoning, which allows higher density on larger sites. This strategy can increase the incentive for owners to cooperate in a land assembly that creates higher land values.
- Attracting Infill Development in Distressed Communities: 30 Strategies (EPA: 2015). See a sampling of model ordinances/incentive programs.
- For design resources related to commercial and housing infill development, see implementation tools for the Building Redevelopment best practice, especially tools under BPA 5.5.
- Build a Better Burb, the online journal of suburban design, has resources for infill projects in addition to addressing a sense of place, parking and transit, and thinking regionally.
- Strong towns require age diversity in order to sustain themselves: children, the next generation; working-age adults, the most financially and civically engaged community members; and retirees, a repository of community wisdom and volunteer energy. Designing neighborhoods for safe, independent living at all stages of life - which includes providing life-cycle housing - is thus critical for a vibrant city. See Making Room: Housing for a Changing America (AARP: 2019) for a wide menu of housing options.
- A Community Land Trust is a non-profit that holds the title for multiple parcels of land, removing the cost of the land from residential and commercial buildings. This results in increased long-term affordable options in the community. See the Center for Community Land Trust Innovation for more resources and see where CLTs currently exist.
- What are community land trusts? And what could they do to address the Twin Cities’ affordable housing crisis? (MinnPost, 2020). Learn more about the City of Lakes Community Land Trust which has ‘helped hundreds of low- and middle-income people buy a home.’
- See additional implementation tools for action 7.1.
Order Number
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