Creating a Housing Ecosystem or You CAN Have Your Cake and Eat it Too! City of Buda, Texas American Planning Association Texas Chapter
It s a Buda-ful Life Nosebleed-inducing growth: 125% from 2010 to today (16,428) Young & Well-Educated Rapidly rising home values Rapidly rising rents Wealthy High permit volumes
But Are There Storms on the Horizon? 51.9% increase in HaysCAD appraised values over 7 years 1 Bedroom Apartments: $930 $1,376 Doesn t include utilities $1.50+ per SF per Month Growing potential for displacement Growing concern about housing options emerging in economic development Dissatisfaction with conventional garden apartments (city government & residents of apartments)
Actual Homes Sales Prices
National Trends, Coming to a City Near You 68% Of US housing stock is single-family detached homes 83% Of households in the US will have no children by 2030 63% Of households in the US will be 1-person households by 2030 2,467 Square feet the median size of a new single-family house in 2016 Source: Regarded researcher Arthur Nelson s book Reshaping Metropolitan America
The Market Infallible? All of the plans on the shelf, but why aren t we getting what we want? Specialization Scale Complexity Economy of Scale = Return on Investment Brain Damage They re building and people are buying but are they actually getting what they want? What happens when life changes and what they bought doesn t suit their needs? What do people want?
Grim Reality: Nobody is Coming to Save You
Have We Forgotten How to Build Housing?
What Do These Buildings Have in Common? Wait WUT?!?
Yes, They are All 1-4 Unit Residential in the Eyes of FHA!
The Big Idea You can do amazing things with a conventional mortgage & a bank that knows how to read underwriting requirements Income potential of rent can credit to the owner in qualifying almost anyone in your city can be part of the solution maybe even revitalize your downtown while you re at it? Small & incremental development can provide critical housing needs that help current owners stay in neighborhood, provide affordable rental housing AND check the box in your Comprehensive Plan to preserve smalltown character! You just need to create the ecosystem to make it possible!
The Big Question Who do you want to live in your town 5, 10 or 30 years from now? Is the value of what is being built enough to cover maintenance costs in the future? As a city official, you can t MAKE people come to town or build housing. You CAN create a regulatory ecosystem that makes it easier to attract people that will or inspire the people you already have to step up to the plate. You specifically don t have to like the housing you just have to like that people who might commit to your community like it. Housing decisions, including zoning decisions, can impact your city years & decades down the road THINK LONG-TERM Small & incremental infill development maximizes your existing infrastructure, helping the City s bottom line AND providing housing opportunities
Value Proposition for Community Give? Get? Ecosystem Supporting Small Developers Robust, Anti-Fragile Tax Base Particularly Banks, Investors, Municipal Rules High Value Per Acre Development Pattern Owned by Locals
Whooooaaaa there settle down! Not ready to drop 4-plexes into the middle of your neighborhoods? NEITHER WERE WE! R-1 & R-2: traditional single-family R-1 allows ADUs by-right, allowed by specific use permit in R-2 thru R-5 R-3 zoning: 1-2 family dwellings Traditional single-family, townhouses, duplexes Basically, all of the things treated as residential by building code R-4 zoning: transitional townhouse all the way to 4-plex Form-Based Codes to create centers of activity and small-town compatible density ADUs by-right, wide variety of housing types allowed by-right Applied in downtown area and two other parts of the city; designed to be added elsewhere in future Accessory Dwelling Units your gateway drug!
That s Nice so what s happening in Buda? New development codes adopted Fall 2017 Now getting applications from Average Jane s and Average Joe s to build ADUs Now getting applications to resubdivide properties so emptynest owner can downsize into a smaller house and sell/rent the bigger house Plans filed for Buda s first townhome project An ecosystem is in place and ready for investment
Takeaways You CAN grow AND maintain character You CAN create a regulatory ecosystem that encourages the market to provide what you are looking for You DON T have to wait for a savior to come to town someone is ALREADY THERE ANYBODY can be part of the housing solution in your community AND YOU CAN CREATE STRONGER NEIGHBORHOODS AND A STRONGER FINANCIAL POSITION FOR THE CITY
Resources With Good Ideas for Every Persuasion American Planning Association - Texas Txplanning.org American Planning Association Planning.org Incremental Development Alliance Incrementaldevelopment.org Strongtowns Strongtowns.org Congress for the New Urbanism CNU.org
Contact Information Chance Sparks, AICP Assistant City Manager csparks@ci.buda.tx.us www.ci.buda.tx.us 512-312-5745