Agenda - Planning Commission - 09/04/2014

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Last revised July 24, 2014 • Utilize the Urban Land Institute —Minnesota and Regional Council of Mayors' Opportunity City Program's Community Site Principles and other tools that foster best practices for maximizing land use and connecting with job and transportation networks. Using housing investments to build a more equitable region By 2010, nearly one in eight of our region's residents lived in an Area of Concentrated Poverty. Areas of Concentrated Poverty can be associated with a lack of private investment, poorer performing schools, an absence of job opportunities, higher crime rates, and lower quality housing stock. These negative associations should be addressed directly —it is too easy to assume that these impoverished communities are undesirable places to live or invest. Public interventions should address educational opportunities, crime, and the quality of the housing stock as well as spread the message that many wonderful, desirable qualities exist in these neighborhoods, including access to a variety of transit options, rich neighborhood history, diverse housing stock, and proximity to downtown job concentrations. There is opportunity to reduce the perceptions that low-income neighborhoods are inherently dangerous or without desirable qualities and increase the likelihood of private investment in these areas. One of the most destructive outcomes facing a community with a high concentration of poverty is the private market's decreasing investment in that community. The social and supportive services that often arise to address the problems of the community (jobs programs, public assistance offices, supportive housing) only strengthen the perception that investment is a losing proposition. Thus a destructive cycle perpetuates. Public and non-profit investments —in both development and services —become concentrated in neighborhoods where the need now exists. Market -rate investment in neighborhoods with concentrations of low-income households becomes risky for both the private and public sectors. Conversely, improvements to an impoverished neighborhood, such as a transit investment, may inflate the cost of housing and displace residents living in poverty just as conditions are improving. The scale of these concerns may be only resident perceptions or based in data, but households being priced out of their neighborhood is not expanding housing choice. Moreover, the fear of gentrification reveals the real challenge of creating communities that provide a full range of housing options. Low-income neighborhoods may be as wary of market -rate development as so-called higher -income neighborhoods are of affordable housing. In addition to attracting a mix of investment to Areas of Concentrated Poverty, creating a more equitable region requires simultaneously increasing housing choices for low- and moderate -income households outside of Areas of Concentrated Poverty. Providing a full range of housing choices throughout the region requires a balanced approach of adding affordable housing in higher -income areas, maintaining a mix of housing affordability in areas where future and pending public investments hold great untapped potential, and enhancing the livability of low-income neighborhoods. The Council is committed to creating safe, thriving communities and improving the variety and location of housing options for all households. Council role • Work with communities to create more income -diverse neighborhoods, including strategically targeted subsidies to develop market -rate housing in areas that lack market -rate options. • Use Livable Communities Act resources to catalyze private investment in Areas of Concentrated Poverty. 2040 HOUSING POLICY PLAN I METROPOLITAN COUNCIL DRAFT RELEASED FOR PUBLIC COMMENT Part II: Outcomes (Equity) I Page 30