Affordable Housing Strategiesand Implementation

Housing strategies and implementation with Bill Nair and Murphy Antoine. You can share your thoughts on hashtag on the Park Bench by going to WWW. Dot Tiny URL. Dot com slash OTPB feedback. And you can join us for upcoming webinars. On Tuesday, June 11, th join us for mitigating harm through community based ideas. In 2022 the metropolitan planning council documented the equity and environmental harm that transportation infrastructure documented the equity and environmental harm that transportation infrastructure has historically caused the equity and environmental harm that transportation infrastructure has historically caused in the equity and environmental harm that transportation infrastructure has historically caused in the Chicago region. And sought community generated ideas to mitigate those harms. Representatives from 3 Chicago-based organizations will discuss how to identify projects that communities want to advance. And the process to do so. You can register for that webinar [email protected] slash resources slash on the park bench. And you can join us for seeing you 32 which starts next week on May 15.th See you, 32 will be a congress to celebrate urbanism in the Midwest. And is premier national event to engage with the trends and challenges. Related to building community. You can learn more and register at CNU. Org. Slash CNU, 32. And on to today's webinar. Bill Nair is a designer with over 3 decades of experience working on a wide array of projects. From 2013 to February 2024 he was the principal of ner and associates a building design and development consulting firm that completed numerous successful projects for its clients. In February of 2024. They'll join the city manager's office at the city of Regina as the manager of special projects for the Housing Accelerator Fund. He recently added interim manager of the new housing branch to his role at the city. Building upon a lifetime of research and urban design study. Bill obtained his senior way accreditation in 2,015 to better equip him to help his clients create great places to live and work. A deep sense of equity and responsibility to others is embedded in Bill's work and studies. Throughout his design and consulting career. He has explored the best practices for meeting the challenges of homeless and affordable housing worldwide. Murphy Antoine is president and principal at Tori Gallison Partners where his work focuses on the relationship between architecture, urban design, and planning in lower density neighborhoods and communities. His efforts to implement housing policy and market response through appropriate and contextual architecture and neighborhood planning have manifested themselves nationwide in number 70 revitalization and newly developed projects during his 25 plus year tenure at She's the Dallas. Perfect practices as both a professional architect and professional planner. Using urban design to inexplicably link the 2 practices. He bridges an all too common divide between the 2 professions by bringing the planners priorities a public of policy implementation, community benefit, and public collaboration to bear on his architectural contributions. In recognition of a significant impact on architecture and society at a national level through the promotion of affordable housing. Mr. Antoine was elevated to the American Institute of Architects College of Fellows in 2,020. And I am Lauren Mayor, Communications Manager at CNU. As a reminder, please use the Q&A function to ask questions as they occur to you. Let's start. Today's webinar, Bill, over to you. Great, and thank you very much for the opportunity to. Be with everyone here today and to really get the share a lot of exciting things that are happening in our city with regards to affordable housing and also our participation in the Housing Accelerator Fund. So it's important that before we start off that, I acknowledge that, I am here participating in the traditional lands of the, Treaty for territories and the homelands of the So I'm guessing a lot of people here on the webinar don't know where we're China is and we're located right here in the middle of the Canadian prairies. And that we're a city of a pop population of roughly 268,000 with 69 square miles of area. With an average, income of 1 70 and, The average home price of 3 30 just to give you some reference points as we're going forward. So what a difference a year makes. It's this time of year that I get excited about attending the the upcoming Congress. And last year it was no different. I was looking forward to exploring a new city, getting to hang up with some old friends making some new ones learning a lot of great stuff and coming back with a lot of great information. But there was always this, sense of, of, I would say let down in that we would come home to, to an area that really hasn't seen the kind of change that we would like to in terms of a newer Renner's ideas. But as I say, what a difference a year makes going into Cincinnati this year, I'm excited to be able to share with our colleagues. About some of the great things that have gone forward. We've come from one of the most restrictive areas when it comes to zoning to probably one of the more relaxed and we now have things such as a forplex as a right in residential areas as well as We have removed our parking. Minimums and change them to parking suggestions, a term which I really love. So what changed? Well, really, as it is for most of the world, including our country and city, we've reached the tipping point when it comes to the housing crisis. And it was definitely a crisis that required an action. Now, it truly was a national crisis and Fortunately, It was a crisis that we had seen sort of coming for a while and it was in that it was a crisis that required some. Some step up in the in the governments area. I like the term that there's been 2 2 uses in a time of crisis. It's not just a time of anxiety and worry. It gives us a chance and opportunity to choose well or to choose badly. Well, I'm here to say that I'm very thankful that our federal government shows wisely and entered into the national housing housing strategy. It was a plan, a 10 year plan to address the country's housing emergency that has recently grown to a commitment of over 83 million dollars towards the strategy. And the strategy really was set to. Deal with investing into affordable housing and rentals, cutting chronic homelessness. Building new affordable homes and creating strong safe communities where families can thrive. And as part of that program, there was the, the Housing Accelerator Fund that was announced. 4 billion dollars or 5 years to create a hundred 1,000 new homes. And a specific trade of this fund was to to drive transformative change within local government sphere of control. Regarding land use and development approvals. And towards that. The CMHC, which administers these programs for the federal government. Gave us some good ideas in terms of the application of the kinds of things that they would like to see and a lot of these things are very typical to what we would consider new urbanism such as the end of exclusionary zoning. Reduce or eliminate parking standards. All of those great things that helped go towards taking away some of the barriers that cause, cause us not to be able to proceed with affordable housing projects. Well, after some hard work by some dedicated folks at City Hall, and a successful application on December 13th we signed an agreement with the federal government for over 35 million dollars to build an additional 100 homes in our community. And a lot of it goes, the credit goes to the team to put their application together because really all the initiatives that we have created, 11 in total. Really do follow the best accepted practices that CMHC outlined. And that these are all part of the goals that we have going forward and plan to address. So why were we ready for these changes? As a community like I said before Previously and really for decades as being someone who advocated for change, it seemed like we were never going to get there. But what was one of the things that changed? Well, truthfully, over 3 decades of research, scholarship, advocacy, and writing by the CNU and its members. Have made new urbanist principles to be the accepted norm for city building. And really the reason why I can say that is. When a city council in the middle of the Canadian prairies uses language of new urbanism to refute the objectives of local nimbes. For, batim was, something that I would have heard 1015 years ago, Andrea say at conference. So it really has become now that the the new urbanist principles have become mainstream. And I really think it is in talking about that that we sort of follow this. This IA diffusion curve. I always thought we were probably somewhere around the skeptical masses. It would take us a while to get on board. But really it has become so much part of our culture and our language. That as a city here, we're really into what we would consider the early majority or the late majority. It's a It is exciting for me and I as a community it's it's an exciting time to see us now embracing the things that have been holding us back in terms of moving forward addressing things like, the housing crisis. So we signed on to the, the initiatives and to the housing accelerator fund. We have some significant challenges ahead that we need to attract. Through our initiatives. But they are significant to say the least. One of them is is that we as part of the 1st work and a good part of the 3 phase program has been already approved by council and has gone into the bylaws is as changing the zoning bylaws to reflect things such as the forplex as of right the change to to removing the parking minimums things such as 4 and 6 story buildings along transit corridors and hubs. It was the kind of thing that we found most people really didn't tweak into until we until it went through council and people started talking about it. And I always say zoning is a lot like electricity. You don't think about it. Until you come in direct contact with it. And that really is the case when we started promoting the things that the used Brian of some of our tribe true Nimbes who filled the council chambers to express their concerns about what was going forward and how it would affect their communities. And fortunately, it was also a countered by a number of people who were speaking in favor of it. Again, something we wouldn't have seen in previous years, but now we are seeing a balanced argument. When we talk about things like our changes to zoning. And really the big piece of the zoning puzzle that had a lot of people anxious was the introduction of missing middle and us talking about how we wanted to see missing middle going into residential neighborhoods. Well, when we talk about the missing middle and the changes and some of the things that we proposed people got anxious for some reason they thought one year from now this is the way it would be they would be straddled by a large developments that would completely destroy the fabric of their neighborhood. Well, Well, you know this obviously isn't the case. They also thought that they vacant lots and when they would see a forplex coming it would look something like this in nature and for some reason there's always the tendency to believe the worse that might that might result. Because we often think of the things, as, a community, of the things that are the egregious things, the things that we don't want to see instead of thinking about what they can be. And that's part of our work going forward as well, is encouraging the community to understand that infill is something that can beautiful it can fit the character of the neighborhood and working with our local industry. The intent is to put things in place to to make sure and encourage the kind of development that people want to see that's happening in the neighborhood. But still, there will always be those who, get little anxiety over it. Also, one of the things that we're dealing with is increased construction costs. And I know that's universal across all of the. All of North America. To pick on one in particular. We all have seen what's happened to the lumber prices. Particular, we've seen a major spike, which fortunately is starting to see some market correction, but still it's really changed the cost of building. And you know that a good crisis is underway and has been into the public zeitgeist when you start getting memes and these are a couple of my favorite memes that have been out there and really we're expressing some of the anxiety that we're all facing. And not just to put it all on to lumber. In fact, everything did go up, including the cost of, rebar and PVC. So the cost of construction is being is becoming one of the major challenges that we're having to deal with and we're trying to find ways that we can be innovative and encourage. Opportunities for thoughtful building and we're looking at the development of pre approved plans that are effective and efficient use of materials and hopefully they Of course, the other thing that we're experiencing in our community is the crisis and trades and truthfully again, it's 1 of those universal things. For years, we've been discouraging. Our, young folks to join into the trades as saying it's that it's not really a good option. That they should look at programming and stuff. But the reality is are neglect and encouraging the trades has meant that there is a real lack of skilled trades out there. And in fact a lot of the trade force is getting much older. If I, if I were, working in the masonry trade in my community, I would be considered a youngster. The curve in terms of age it's just something else we have trades people who would love to retire. So we're trying to work with industry to encourage people to help make the trades become a desirable path for a lot of young people. The building code changes will have an effect as well as we're going forward with tiered, approaches with working our way towards net 0, but some of the changes that we're going to be looking at with regards to accessibility, it's actually going to change not, it will affect not only cost, but it will change things such as floor plates to the extent that we may have to be starting to look at larger lots when we talk about accessibility. So it's having a direct dialogue and and a conversation with the code officials to make sure that these code changes make sense for everybody and are going to be something that we can work with in the future and aren't going to be a significant problem going forward. The sort of service land too as in many communities is one of the things that we are facing. And one of our initiatives, in fact, is to see if we can prioritize the development of infrastructure to land, to make sure that we're getting land available and into production sooner than later so that we can start dealing with some of our housing issues. Intel development again has its own challenges and we've created a number of initiatives that are looking towards that. But the additional costs that go along with infill are always problematic. Plus, in our city we have the the double negative in the sense that we've got really no specialized in film builders. So we're having to find developers and builders maybe from other cities and other areas that can bring their expertise to our community and help deal with this this area that we were desiring to see an increase in growth in. Also, the introduction of new housing typologies is problematic and that we have built nothing but single-family dwellings and that we have built nothing but single-family dwellings and condos for so long that we have built nothing but single family dwellings and condos for so long that we really forgotten how to build these missing middle pipes properly. So introducing to them, introducing them into part of our plan. Again, we are looking at initiatives that will help. Developers. Look at these as viable options going forward. And helping us build out the types of. Buildings that we need to address our concerns. Do I believe that we can overcome these changes? Well, most definitely. I have been all of my life in the private sector. And in February, I, took the chance to join the city of Regina and work specifically in this area. I believe we are at a time of change not only within our our community but really communities all over the place. That we need to. Contribute in whatever way that we can to help to overcome this crisis and My opportunity to share what I've learned through the industry. And through the city, going forward. Is, is the goal that I really think that, We are going to be able to move the needle and. It's incumbent upon us to take this opportunity that we've been given to. To go forward and make some significant changes. I'm excited about the future. I'm excited to brag a little bit at CNU. 32. But that's just a little bit of an update from our community. And stay tuned. Hopefully we have a lot of exciting things to report. In the future. Okay. Thanks, Bill. That's, that's great stuff. This is Murphy and I guess I will just, jump right in if that works. So I'd like to to talk about new urbanisms impact on affordable housing and propose a construct for a conversation to have conversation about affordable housing where we're not talking past each other. So I think there are different aspects. We all know there are different aspects to affordable housing, but how can we apply those and and have a have a common conversation and we'll and we'll talk about that in in the guise of a case study as well. I think CNU and new urbanism can take a lot of credit and should take a lot of pride in the impact on on the affordable housing. Conversation this goes back to the early ninetys with Henry Sisters tenure at HUD. And and as new urbanism started to rise in prominence and as a movement the, the, the advent of the Hope 6 program and new urbanism specific impact and ongoing impact on that. That so much so that in the 25th anniversary of new urbanism, and public square identified the public housing that engages the public housing that engages the city as one of the 25 great ideas the city as one of the 25 great ideas of new as one of the 25 great ideas of new urbanism. But, of the 25 great ideas of new urbanism. But certainly that conversation is not over that conversation. But certainly that conversation is not over. That conversation continues as Bill identified. The crisis is, of new urbanism. But certainly that conversation is not over. That conversation continues as Bill identified. The crisis is, is here. It's in every city. It's in, it's in our country. It's international. And so the evolution of the affordable housing conversation both at HUD at the policy level at the CNU level needs to continue the choice neighborhoods initiative is one of HUD's initiatives that comes out of OP 6. It's actually 14 years old now. It started in, 2,010. So that's part of this ongoing conversation. But as the crisis heightens, we need to to speak with louder voices and not just rest on on the laurels of our of our past. Just a little bit of background. This is a graphic that talks about the median housing burden. Sort of the statistics are US, but again, this is applicable in lots of places as Bill just showed us in Canada. But the the housing burden, the cost of housing for both renters and owners just plainly outstrips the median household income. And this is particularly . We'll be acute in places where land values are high and land values are high where people want to live where economic opportunity were community opportunity thrives and so, so the crisis becomes that much more acute. 30% of income spent on, housing is the, that kind of housing and HUD metric of an undo housing burden. So when you spend 30% or more of your income on housing that is out of whack with the proportion that should be spent in the US. 50% of renters, 50% of renters across the board pay 30% or more of their income. These are 2022 statistics. And the one that blew me away was 21% of owners. So we think of owners home ownership as the as the place of arrival, but homeowners, 21%, are paying more than 30% of their income. So the overall blended proportion is 31% a 3rd of the population pain or house are burdened. 25% of household income used to be the the metric in the original HUD standards and so those numbers go go up. So just a little bit of a background on the crisis. So how do we even talk about this crisis. How do we even talk about affordable housing in my experience? And even in new urbanist circles that often the affordable housing conversation has people talking past each other. That some people are focused on certain areas of affordability, others are focused on others. All of those areas of affordability are interrelated. So I'd like to suggest that there are 3 dimensions of affordability and again talk about those in a case study. So the one that comes most immediately to mind is affordable to build. This idea that if you can build the better mouse trap, if you can build the more affordable single home and then apply that at scale you have somehow solved the affordability crisis. And that is where the architects come in. This is where my head was at 30 years ago thinking about affordability and it's certainly critical to affordable housing supply. But it is not the be all end all of housing affordability. So this idea of being affordable to rent or own. So once you built it, once now you're in that home, how affordable is it? To rent or own depends on is a conversation about the economic construct. It comes down to land cost and base cost at its initial application. But it also is is where the lending subsidy and policy part of of the affordability conversation really comes in so if you've got an affordable to build home that is affordable to deliver, you also need that it home that is affordable to acquire to obtain to live in. And then where the new urbanists can really come in is this idea of what happens then and what is the larger context. So the 3rd dimension of housing affordability in this construct is affordable to live in and that has to do with ongoing operations and maintenance. So what are utilities like, what are the ongoing even taxation structures, but also the larger community affordable to live in in terms of access. To to other services access to jobs access to schools access to education access to healthy foods. So again, not an uncommon new urbanist idea, but certainly impacts affordability. I wanna apply some of these to a project of Courtney Gallison partners in Milwaukee, Wisconsin called West Lawn Gardens and this is a case study application. So a little bit of background on on West Lawn. It's a multi-phased public housing transformation. It's in kind of a t 3 transect portion of the city and kind of the northeast. Corner of Milwaukee and so a really suburban retrofit in that part of the city. It is substantially sized. So 75 acres and a thousand homes. It is mixed income so it is public housing replacement for very low income residents, workforce housing and market rate housing. It was funded, in part by a HUD choice neighborhoods grant, which expanded the concerns of Hope 6. To go not only beyond the boundaries of the site, but beyond the boundaries of that affordable to build. The sticks and bricks part of the conversation. So it touches people concerns, it touches neighborhood concerns in the choice neighborhoods language. It's also mixed use in that incorporates incubator businesses for economic development, community supportive services, community gardens, and and the significant investment in infrastructure improvement. This was low land up against a channelized creek. With lots of flooding, it was a landfill before that, so it has poor soils. And poor drainage, there was a lot of infrastructure retrofit and all of these aspects again speak to the larger affordability dilemma and affordability. A solution here beyond the housing. It was also, put sustainability as a high priority. Was Wisconsin's 1st lead for Homes, Platinum Certification in a public out. It was Wisconsin's 1st and it was achieved in a public housing transformation context. What makes West affordable to build. Efficient and appropriate typologies so you see some townhomes here you see some stacked flats you see some some cottage types of homes a small compact footprints primarily rectilinear we've got porches and dormers and bays but again rectilinear additions and and and compact in their application. So duplexes, town home strings, and multifamily all blended into the neighborhood fabric. So you see a multi-family apartment building next to townhomes in that lower. Picture and cost-effective materials. So this idea that you can build, affordably with cost-effective materials. This is all wood construction, still the most economic way to deliver homes, cementitious panel and siding. There's some limited brick. And in a project of this guys. There were multiple phases as I said earlier and different experiments and affordability in different phases. So we even did volumetric modular homes which you see in that photo in the upper right. With the modules built off-site in factory ship to site and then and then put as a as a way to deliver affordably with some successes and some challenges as well. Affordable to rent or own. Comes to those 1st costs. So if it's affordable to build. The 1st cost is low. That helps with the affordability. But it's also tied to land costs. This was public housing land held in trust by the housing authority and operated under the administration of UD and and and city structures but the land was the contribution to the to the project they had the housing authority acted as their own developer in this case they brought the land had allowed the land to be used. And so not having those land costs. Is part of the affordability solution and in any city I would argue that you can find what is often called surplus land or or tax repossessed land or large reservations of city property. That can also be a part of the affordable housing solution and should be. In the homeownership and commercial portions, low interest and no interest loans are are part of this affordability and the main point I want to make here is that the market alone cannot and has not solved our affordability problem. That subsidy, especially at the low income, very low income and extremely low income households that subsidy needs to be an important part of the conversation needs to be an important part of the political will. And, and the only way that we get to a solution. This 3rd component is the or 3rd dimension of affordability is affordable to live in. So the idea that West Lawn has access to transit, again it's sort of a t 3 suburban edge but rapid but the bus system along Silver Spring, which is a main east west, corridor at the north partial portion of the city gives access to to jobs education and commerce and other parts of the of the city. There's a there's a warehouse district just north. Of here that is tied to the regional economic growth. These were built we talked I mentioned the sustainability a little bit the tight envelopes to keep utility costs down so it's affordable to live in. When you're paying the the Wisconsin heating bill in in February 5 years after you're in. Municipal tax payments were part of the the contribution on both rental side ownership and ownership side and on the ownership side property tax escalation. Moratoriums. We're part of it. So again, affordable to live in. After you've got it affordable to get in, to acquire and affordable to build all need to be part of, of the conversation. Hoping to see many of you in Cincinnati next week. Here's another example that's blocks away from CNU in the the sort of western just west of downtown and over the Rhine city west and earlier kind of example and then another project in in in Richmond, Virginia and the Churchill North neighborhood. So I throw those in just to say that this is a construct of affordability that can be applied in many cases and it's something that we that we try to bring to our work. Last couple of points that I want to make that all of the West Lawn certainly and those other 2 examples are large projects. Here's another one. In the Pacific Northwest in Tacoma, Washington at Salachan. These are big projects. Where bringing the affordable housing, the architecture and the plan together are important aspects and critical aspects of the affordability. That in some ways makes them what we would. What we might describe in new urbanist circles as big architecture projects and and I invite that that discussion, but I will say what distinguishes them from the big architecture projects of the earlier mid 20th century that you see here and Robin Hood Gardens is that the urban design and planning comes first.st And the architecture or the mix of typologies is what is applied to that urban design and planning framework to bring the neighborhood to life as opposed to starting with a big idea, a single idea about the architecture and extruding that over the landscape. So having in a affordable component and having it in components that can be applied to a large plan but still work and survive on their own individually. At the same time that they're part of the larger community is is. Critical component that the newer Buddhism brings to this aspect. The other ways as I wrap up here, to, that I would suggest that we expand the conversation is again the crisis of affordability is is growing at both ends of the scale. So the increased of homelessness. Homeless families. The in on one end of the economic spectrum and on the other the idea of attainable housing workforce housing that affordable housing is is is a challenge affordability. For everywhere. For everywhere and everyone. I think the affordable housing or I would suggest that the affordable housing conversation is very much tied to the equity and climate change conversation that that we need to talk about location. We need to talk about access. We need to talk about health and energy consumption. And those are just as important if not more important in the affordable housing than as they are in in market rate pieces. Density part of the increase. I hear a lot more conversation about pushing densities. Of affordable housing and I think that that is certainly what something we need to investigate something we need to look at and help solve some of the supply issues. But it always needs to come back to the appropriate typologies appropriate placed. So where housing, affordable housing of a single income tier in high-rise is a mistake that we as a country in the US have made before. It's not something I suggest that that we go into lately. But there are appropriate densities. There are appropriate applications and and we just need to find those solutions and it's different place to place. And then my last plug would be policy. Right, that we need to get back to as a nation, as a new urbanist movement. Forcing and pushing the political will to address these complex and inter related challenges. So we have a proud history of doing that and we should get back to that. I think that's it for me. Thank you so much, Bill and Barbie. Those were 2 excellent presentations. Hopefully we got a nice concept of all the things happening throughout North America. When it comes to addressing the affordable housing crisis. So now I'm going to transition over to a few questions from myself. Before we open it up to the audience QA as a reminder to our audience please use the QA function to ask your questions. So my 1st question, to both you, Bill, and Murphy is you both talked about the role of new urbanism. In addressing the affordable housing crisis. I was wondering if you just, talk about any of the specific principles or anything that you find the most relevant when talking about affordable housing. I'll let you go ahead. 1st Murphy. Okay. Well, that's a that's a mistake, Bill, cause I'm gonna steal from things that you talked about in your presentation, and but hopefully you'll still have something. I think seizing on what has captured or what is currently capturing the public imagination. Is, is a great way to broaden the conversation and that's something we should do. So 2 examples, the both of which the bill cited and that new urbanism can take some some credit for is this idea of missing middle housing. Again, traditional typologies, typologies that we can see in places all over all over the country all over the continent all over the world that there's a ton of conversation about here just in our region in Washington DC. We have Montgomery County in Maryland, Alexandria and Arlington and Virginia that are all at their local municipal policy level, changing zoning as Regina has done to allow missing middle pushing that because it's got people's people's attention and then I would add the climate conversation and environmental justice and the equity conversation is is is on everyone's mind and the equity conversation is is on everyone's mind and a way to talk about, bring it, bring it home in some way and talk about affordable Yeah, when I think about it, I really. I don't think that you can have good affordable housing without good newerness principles. And really all the aspects when we look at the charter are so key to developing the kinds of communities and allowing these sorts of affordability. Going back to the missing middle it is the impact that it can have on a community is huge when you talk about having a different type of variety of living. We've, we have so few really good options for people looking for affordable housing that, this typology, we desperately need to get into urban fabric. Wonderful. Thanks so much. I'm in kind of building off of that question. I was also wondering What aspects of housing are often overlooked when it comes to making desirable places to live? Go ahead, Murphy. Well, the biggest one and it might be related to this missing middle conversation is that. On the delivery side. Particularly in the real estate developer world, the the product world of housing. It is one typology or another. It is not mixed typology. So I think that the the overlooked part is that finer grain city-making neighborhood making planning making that's at the heart of new urbanism that that needs to be applied to housing. There is a market argument for this and that, that needs to be applied to housing. There is a market, argument for this in that, it helps with absorption. If you're putting all of your eggs in one typology basket, as a developer, than, your. In some ways perhaps cannibalizing your own market when you can deliver in pieces with different options. Which is part of what the market looks for, then, then it serves both those purposes, the mix typology for mixed needs, the affordability, and, and a market driver. Seen the effects and it's dramatic in terms of. How you can create these wonderful, fabrics and these great neighborhoods for people to live in. And it's having to In our case, we're having to introduce and educate a whole group of developers that have never thought of this as a viable, a viable option and it's a i think it's 1 of those things when you start looking at the different types of typologies that are going into the different types of typologies that are going into the neighborhood, you got to pull it all that are going into the neighborhood, you got to pull it all out there. I mean, you got to pull it all out there. I mean, we even had discussions recently about is there a place for the return of the siro. I think it's a wide open question that we have to have and we gotta look at it all. Very true. And one final question from me before I turn it over to our audience Q&A is What advice would you give to communities interested in accelerating the construction of housing? Boy, for us going after zoning, that is it. We, we had the benefit of having the, the carrot and the stick we really had we had the carrot given to us by the federal government and the opportunity if we were on the marches and just thinking about maybe we should look at dealing with some of our zoning. That would have been the thing that pushed us over. But you've got to deal with that as a city we realized right off the bed if we're going to do anything that's meaningful. We gotta get after the zoning part and sometimes that's that's the difficult one to. To talk to the talk to the community about, but it's number one, at least in my opinion. I agree with Bill there that the zoning and then expand the regulatory conversation to what are the other regulations that get in the way of affordability and and Bill mentioned some of those we talked about the coding and I think this is actually one of the the participants questions here too is what how much does exclusionary zoning and other restrictions regulations play. And it adds a chunk. We want to we want to serve health safety and welfare and we need to but there's a lot of undue regulation that that adds cost. At both the building code level and the land use level. Great. Thanks so much. And that's a kind of perfect transition into our audience questions. So this 1st one is going to be for Bill and it's from Elaine McGregor. And they are asking, how long did it take to pass the new zoning bylaw from 1st introduction of principals to being passed by your city council. Did that allow for sufficient consultation? Yes. Yeah, that's the best question out of the whole lot because It was approached, I think typically how we deal with zoning in our community. And some would say it's probably maybe not as as engaged with with the public as would be everything is noticed is placed in notices and goes before goes through a period of of review. But we did not entertain very specific, engagement opportunities with for dialogue with the community. One, because it was the time factor, engagement opportunities with for dialogue with the community. One, because it was the time factor. There is a, there is times and, set with the with the housing accelerator fund. And so the intent was to get on with the work that we needed to we needed to get those into council fairly quickly. So it was a matter of maybe 3 to 4 months. Till the 1st one became for council and that was the one that was. Probably the most sleeping which dealt with the the fourplex as bright the removal of the of parking minimums, those sorts of things. And as I said in the presentation, it wasn't until we started talking about sort of the next phases of the zoning reform that people started talking about sort of the next phases of the zoning reform that people started clinging about sort of the next phases of the zoning reform that people started clinging into what the effects were going to be and that's when there was a lot of sort of pushback towards city council about there should have been more consultation. And probably in the hindsight I think everybody in City Hall would say that ideally yes it would have been great if we would have had more time to have that discussion with the community would it have changed the outcome? Probably not because the city council itself was very, adamant about making these changes to address the issues that we had. So. That was sort of our process in kind of the timeline. Gotcha, very interesting. And now over to you, Murphy. This question is from Megan O'hara. And they're asking, can you share about how the housing authority made the financing work for modular construction? Other developers have faced conflicts with upfront deposits required for modular construction and Li HTC closing slash cash flow. Great question, Meagan. So because this because West Lawn Gardens or this phase of West Lawn Gardens had choice neighborhoods funding. They were able to work out with HUD as opposed to getting to the LYTECTIONS had choice neighborhoods funding, they were able to work out with HUD as opposed to getting to the LYTEC, whatever, deposits were needed, for, to get the modular going because it was a later phase. And I wanna say it was actually probably the 3rd or 4th phase, of West Lawn where modular was introduced. The success of the earlier phases also made those negotiations a little bit easier that it was a guaranteed delivery. It was a stabilized project in some ways that made some of the upfront demands of the modular construction. Factories and and that development side a little easier. I will say at the end of the day, you know, the hope was to save dollars and to save times time in the Wisconsin. Winter that neither of those really came to, fruition at West Lawn in the modular experiment that in the end it did not save significant time. It did not save significant money. So this is still a learning process for all of us. Very interesting. Yeah, having these case studies out there is really helping kind of move parts. Forward and lessons learned are always helpful. This question is for both of you. It is from Nick Flowers. And they ask it was mentioned that the market alone has not and will not solve affordability. How much of this is a product of exclusionary zoning and other restrictions slash regulations placed upon housing over the years? What role, if any, does the market play in achieving affordability? Boy, that's a big one. There is, The market certainly has a place to play, but I think based on my background, of experience and going forward really to accomplish the kinds of things that we need to do in terms of particularly deeply affordable housing. It really is something that comes through, through subsidies, whether they're, in our case, provincial or federal. It the market the market can keep other parts moving well I think. But even then I think there is some adaptation, but dealing specifically with affordable and deeply affordable housing. It's definitely, it's definitely going to be subsidies and other programs that make. That make it work. I can't see the market handling it by itself. But in partnership with with a public entity with the public interest and with the public subsidy. That's where the market can make the biggest influence and to the other part of the question now what is the impact? I've heard it's of the regulatory and zoning exclusions. I've heard people say 10 to 15% off the top. I couldn't swear to those. Statistics. I've heard one of the new urbanist founders say it's 50% of the total cost and I would definitely not swear to those statistics, but it's, it's all over the place, but it is something and it is significant. And it, and it weren't some drilling down and just getting to some common sense answers. Absolutely. Thanks so much for those responses. I have a few questions here about missing middle housing. This one is a really interesting one from Buddy Milliken. And it is at the smaller range of missing middle housing. Is it feasible to build market rate projects that are internalally subsidized? By the location efficiencies for mobility and the economic benefits of this sharing of places, resources, and capabilities among neighbors. Absolutely. I think it's, like to say we all like to say design is about proportion, right? And I think that goes with proportion of financing pieces and proportion of financing pieces and proportion of financing pieces and proportion of programming pieces. So So internally subsidized, absolutely, but how much of a contributor is that? I think you could point to a lot of the. The kind of cottage housing. Movement that many new urbanist firms are involved with and see those kinds of internal supports and and location call it subsidy but just sort of efficient ways to live efficient ways to build. And and ways to look differently. At the opportunities that different sites bring. I would concur nothing to add to that. One wonderful thanks so much. And then I'm gonna combine a couple questions here. One is from Snow, Gee, Reth Nashakira, and the other is. From Wayne Evans. And they're both about mixed income development. Asking how the affordable house, how can affordable housing practically produce space and housing for mixed communities. Can high in low-income groups blend in well and then in addition to that do does HUD have anything to do with making mixed income development? More of a reality. Well, they, can, mix income work and different income tiers, live together in the same neighborhood in the same community. Absolutely. And there's been examples of this all throughout our history. If anything it was. We more kind of a 20th century construct where You know, one neighborhood was exclusively one thing and others were something else. HUD in their choice neighborhoods program and again HUD is a an enormous system choice neighborhoods is in the public housing. Portion of HUD. They insist on mixed income checkerboarded through the plan. Used to be if you had there was one question earlier about the . The LIKE, which is the low-income housing tax credit, which is part of the the mixed finance usually, that LYTECH had to be continuous, right? You had to do if you were doing using white tech funding for it, it needed to be altogether in one place and you couldn't have gaps. In Wesleyan, maybe you could even see it in one of the earlier parts. You would see some gaps in that plan and that aerial and that was all to bring in the homeownership. Later and kind of fill it in and that was really HUD pushing us pushing the housing authority to to seamlessly blend so one way to seamlessly blend is in the plan it's mixed in another way to seamlessly blend is to not have a distinction between the quality of the affordable home and the and the market home. And we strive very much to do that and all of our developments like this. No, again, very much concur specifically with that last part when you have. You have to have it, blend seamlessly and you can't, be able to pick out from the sidewalk, which is the, the subsidized, development. Again, it's an area that, as, as a region and as a city, we're still. Trying to get in in the we're We're looking for best examples of best practices that we can start introducing to our developers and builders to look at and use as models. Great, thanks for tackling both of those questions. We're almost at time, so I'm gonna just ask you folks one more question, which is from Way Liu and it is in terms of affordability. What are some of the key factors for a successful affordable housing project and they give the example of political will versus location or land cost. Would that what I was trying to propose is that they're all interrelated. And that there is not one single aspect and that it's likely will be different project to project and location. Certainly outside my window in Washington DC. Land value is going to be a prime driver and other locations it's it's going to be economic development. Right. If, you know, part of one of the challenges of West Lawn and it was embedded in one of the questions here too, and it was embedded in one of the questions here too is what was the cost for the for sale and how do you keep that affordable? We keep costs down, we keep location down, we've got subsidy. What does it cost? It's still if you can get $180,000 for sale home, you can still go 3 blocks away and get a $40,000 for sale home. You can still go 3 blocks away and get a $40,000 home in the market because the land values are different. The economics are different. So it's it's it's going to be different in different places in different locations. So how does that, how does that market compete with an existing housing fabric that is the the that is very undervalued. No, and again, just to build upon that really it, it is all of those factors working together in harmony and in some cases it is you know, the market will be definitely driving. More of your considerations, but There are also, we look at under served communities as well and where we need to get involved in terms of subsidies and, and getting involved directly into. Into that that market so it's all it's political will it's the market it's it's it's the industry it's everybody working together I think that's the only way we're going to solve it is by everyone playing nice together and getting the job done. Great, well that takes us right to time so thank you both Murphy and Bill for taking the time to be on our webinar today. For all of our audience and recording of this webinar will be available within 24 h on our website. And we hope to see a lot of you next week at CNU.