Today, it's time for another installment in the ongoing examination of why Durham County and Wake County are two far, far different communities, with different values and worldviews. From Monday's N&O:
Knightdale's Town Council has unanimously enacted an "affordable housing policy" that limits its inventory of subsidized low- and moderate-income homes to 120 -- a dozen more than it has now.
The policy prohibits any more than that until the town's proportion of affordable housing drops below Wake County's average, almost two-thirds less.
"It's a great policy," Mayor Doug Boyd said last week. "We've got our fair share, and we don't need anymore."
...
Town officials calculated that [a new low-income housing] development would have almost doubled Knightdale's stock of subsidized low- to moderate-income homes to 216, or 6.3 percent of the town's housing.
That might not seem like much, but it's a greater percentage than that of any other Wake town, including Zebulon, the county's current leader in affordable housing.
In Raleigh, by contrast, 1.4 percent of the housing stock is "affordable" subsidized housing, according to a countywide tally.
Cary, Apex, and Garner have relatively less still -- and Rolesville and Morrisville have none.
In Wake County, you can live out in a beatified community of new sprawldivisions, thoughtfully planned out by experts in urban design like, oh, Centex and KB Homes... if you can afford it, that is. And you'll be well-served by such bastions of local character as Wal-Mart, McDonalds, Food Lion, and the like.
But of course, the good people who work at these establishments won't be able to afford to live in the same town as you. Not on minimum wage. Of course, you probably wouldn't want them to live in your neighborhood, to worship in your church, to attend your neighborhood school -- unless the accursed Board of Education meddles with your own school with its namby-pamby "socioeconomic diversity" policy, natch.
What does Durham do under the same circumstances? Well, for starters, it creates a density bonus in the new development ordinance that provides an incentive to serve low-income individuals, while also trying to sprinkle affordable housing throughout the community -- not just in traditionally impoverished neighborhoods.
It supports local non-profits like Habitat for Humanity, the Durham Community Land Trust, and Self-Help -- the latter of which (whose national headquarters is in downtown Durham) has become a national voice leading the charge not just for effective community investment, but in fighting the scourge of payday lending, too.
It recognizes the failures of 1960s-era housing projects and invests dollars and resources into Hope VI, creating communities that provide not just aesthetic improvement to both those who live there and those who drive through, but a genuine sense of new hope and new beginnings to residents.
It is, in short, a community that does not quiver at the idea of affordable housing, but says -- we have a responsibility to help our neighbors, rather than just shove them out the door.
I spend more time than is reasonable sometimes criticizing the Bull City's local government and city officials for their mistakes. And yes, the debate over neighborhood "improvement services" and their demolition policies is disturbing. But kudos to the city for never turning its back on our social responsibility to provide affordable housing to the community. We will fight about how to get there, but no one's calling for trying to truck off the less fortunate among us to Roxboro or Mebane.
You just have to stop for a second, and remind yourself: but for the grace of God, I could've gotten stuck in Knightdale.
Postscript to Knightdale's Mayor Boyd: Knightdale, and from the sounds of it every community in Wake, needs more affordable housing. But it would seem to help if your town's leadership would start by getting more of a conscience, first.
Kevin, you should take it easy on them. one or two 1000 home mega-sprawl developments will knock their affordable housing ratio back down to the 1 or 2% range, and then they can build another couple of dozen subsidized units without going over their quota.
I'm sure the board of adjustment, or whoever makes those decisions in Knightdale, will be approving those within the next few weeks.
Posted by: barry | May 22, 2007 at 01:49 PM
2 or 3 years ago, I was visiting friends in Mill Valley, CA. It costs so much to live there that average people and people who work in service industries -- the people who check your groceries out, make you dinner, look at your car -- can't afford to live there. The average cost of a house there is currently about $1.2 million.
While I was there, I read an article in the local paper about a debate over a little bit of rezoning for constructing a very small development for "low to low-moderate" income folks. The scary thing: IIRC, "low" income was defined as 24-36K$, and "low-moderate" was 36-54K. $54,000.00. And it's probably even worse now.
By the way, the zoning exception failed. :(
Posted by: Joe | May 26, 2007 at 07:57 PM