RSVP for SFAHBA Member Forum on Affordable Housing this Tuesday, June 23rd
Dear Members, please RSVP and join fellow SFAHBA members TODAY, Tuesday, June 23rd at 3:30 PM for an online forum to discuss City of Santa Fe initiatives intended to make home construction and ownership more affordable.
AFFORDABLE BUILD = AFFORDABLE HOME
Tuesday, June 23, 2020 at 3:30PM
Presenters:
Carlos Gemora, City of Santa Fe Land Use Planner
Alexandra Ladd, Office of Affordable Housing
*this is a SFAHBA member only event
This will be a presentation and discussion with Carlos Gemora, City of Santa Fe Land Use Planner and Alexandra Ladd, Office of Affordable Housing on how amendments to the City’s Land Use Code could benefit our local industry and the community as a whole.
How Can We Lower The Cost of Building Homes?
Brief and Q&A with SFAHBA MembersAs an active SFAHBA member, you’re in a great position to help our Local and State governments craft policy that impacts home construction and affordability. Because of your daily experience interacting with permitting, regulations, inspections, etc., you know what works and what hinders. By staying engaged and offering our perspective and ideas, SFAHBA members can help policy evolve in ways that benefit our entire community.
Please register for this June 23rd forum on amending the City of Santa Fe’s Land Use Code to move toward a more affordable home-building environment.
(A summary of ideas for Amending the City Land Use Code will be emailed to you after registering for the forum)
In December 2019, amendments to the City’s inclusionary zoning (Santa Fe Homes Program) requirement (Chapter 26 of the City’s municipal code) were amended to make the program more flexible and effective. The goal was to achieve on-site affordable units in market rate multifamily development, rather than relying on the payment of fees-in-lieu of.
Incentives for affordable housing are currently offered in Chapter 14 of the City’s land use code but they are of limited value and are reserved for rent-restricted units with income-qualified tenants.
The question arose: how can the City apply better incentives for affordable units and also incentivize market rate builders to create moderately-priced housing?
While the City’s nonprofit and housing authority partners have successfully leveraged subsidy dollars to build high quality, energy-efficient units to serve renters at the lowest incomes, there has been very little incentive for the market to produce “naturally occurring” affordable housing (created to meet a market demand for a more moderately-priced housing). Instead, high costs of land, materials and labor, combined with rigidity in the land use code has fueled development to achieve the highest value possible in order to cover the risks and contingencies demanded by the Santa Fe market.
Join us on June 23 for a discussion with Carlos Gemora, Land Use Planner for the City of Santa Fe, and Alexandra Ladd, Director of the City’s Office of Affordable Housing to discuss ideas for amending Chapter 14, the City’s land use code.
The objective is to make the development of housing less costly by making code requirements more flexible, reducing processing delays, and leveraging financial incentives relative to affordability. By enabling more efficient and affordable land use practices, we can also achieve other community-wide objectives related to urban design, redevelopment and energy efficiency.
