Inclusionary Zoning at risk of repeal

In a last minute backroom deal, the Mayor’s office whipped 9 Common Council Members to support an initiative to overturn our local affordable housing ordinance that took years of research and dialogue to win.

The proposal does two things:
1. Raise the income level that inclusionary zoning serves from low-income to median income.
2. Grant developers a buyout mechanism so that they don’t have to build any working class housing.

These changes are a big deal. Developers could pay their way out of providing low-income housing for as little as $5,000 per unit, assuming they’d even need to, since rents would be higher than $2,000 per month under this “affordability” rubric.

Developers already get hundreds-of-thousands of dollars from tax-payer subsidies, and now we’re giving them a cheap ‘out’ at low-income tenants’ expense.

But the deal’s not done.

On December 1, the six dissenting votes proposed compromise piece of legislation that:

• Raises the inclusionary zoning ordinance’s affordable unit Area Median Income from 60% of the AMI to 70%, rather than the proposed 100% AMI that the Mayor’s office rushed through;
• Includes a compliance mechanism to ensure that the affordable units are provided to those who need them most;
• Increases the ‘buy out’ fee from $5,000 or $10,000 to a $25,000 per unit until only 5% of the property is set aside for those who need them, rather than allowing developers to fully exempt themselves from providing low-income housing;
• Ensures that 75% of funds raised via this buy out mechanism support tenant initiatives, and 25% will support low-income homeowner/homebuyer programs.