The Antiplanner » Tag » affordable housing

Tag Archives: affordable housing

Affordable Housing at $530 Per Square Foot

By | | Housing
4 Comments

Last year, Portland’s Metro persuaded voters to raise their property taxes (which will make housing less affordable) so Metro could sell $652.8 million worth of bonds that could be applied to so-called affordable housing projects. The first such project will be the Mary Ann, a four-story apartment in Beaverton.

The apartments will actually be built by Reach Community Development, a non-profit housing group that is using low-income tax credits to pay nearly 55 percent of the $20.9 million cost. Metro will provide another $3 million, so Reach only has to recover $6.5 million from rents or sales in the building. Continue reading →

Notes from All Over

By | | Transportation
3 Comments

Tomorrow the Antiplanner will review more 2017 census data, but today I’ll briefly comment on a few events that took place while I was reviewing census data last week. First, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority is blaming subway delays on the passengers, claiming that late-arriving riders sticking their feet in the doors as they are closing are responsible for slow trains. Because no one ever did that before this year!

Speaking of the MTA, a member of MTA’s board is suing Mayor de Blasio and New York policy commissioner James O’Neill for their failure to release data on subway fare evaders. Because it is easier to blame financial problems on someone else than it is to actually do your job of overseeing the agency’s finances.

Speaking of fare evaders, San Francisco’s Muni is upset to discover that one out of four transit riders on the city’s famous cable cars aren’t asked if they have paid their fares. Since most riders pay before they board, this doesn’t mean that one in four haven’t paid, only that they haven’t had their tickets checked by the conductor. Continue reading →

Paying for a Tesla, Getting a Scion

By | | Housing, Urban areas
14 Comments

The city of Portland has agreed to contribute $6 million towards the cost of a high-rise, mixed-use complex because the building is supposed to include 60 units of “affordable housing.” “That’s like paying for a Toyota and getting a Tesla in return,” Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler enthused.

No, Mr. Mayor. It’s more like paying for a Tesla and getting a Toyota. A very small Toyota, also known as a Scion.

The building in question is supposed to make innovative use of cross-laminated wood to form one of the tallest wooden buildings in America. Normally wood is not allowed for high rises due to fire danger, but the Oregon wood products industry has been trying to boost the use of this material and claims it has overcome the fire problem. The project developers, coincidentally called Project (technically, Project^, but pronounced “project”), are so enthused that they are willing to put up $1.2 million of their own money towards the $29 million structure. Continue reading →