Collaborative strategies to preserve affordable rental housing

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research has created a new online resource highlighting state and local efforts to collaboratively preserve affordable housing. The site, which currently showcases efforts in Oregon, Washington, Ohio, and Minnesota, describes the partnerships that have formed in each state and the activities that they undertake to work together toward a common goal.

HUD promises to expand the site's content in the coming months. But if anyone has information to share about particularly innovative preservation-focused partnerships in the interim, I'd be very interested to hear about them. Thanks.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Brian Peters on March 21, 2011 at 9:59am

I believe that a big part of this has to be the housing policies communities adopt-zoning laws, restrictions, etc., not just "let us build a tax-credit apartment here!" or "give us money!" which seems quite prevalent. We cannot depend entirely on subsidies, tax credits, or preservation-there will never be enough money, so advocates need to do a better job on improving zoning and ordinances.

This means participation in the different levers of government. An example is Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission's Housing Study which is currently ongoing. Advocates got involved in this process, and was able to include some areas of study that should provide helpful in future efforts. http://www.sewrpc.org/SEWRPC/Housing/CurrentRegionalHousingPlanUpda...

Don't mistake me-we do need more money, we do need to fight local opposition, but privately produced affordability is important, too, in forms of smaller lots, better zoning policies, etc. We should not need to advocate for those at 50% or 60% AMI.

Which is my long-winded way of saying I'd be very interested in studies highlighting efforts to improve zoning policies and local ordinances, especially with a regional approach.