Vegas has slammed the door on affordable housing

Vegas has slammed the door on affordable housing
BY IAN MYLCHREEST
BUSINESS PRESS

February 13, 2006

I'd say it's pretty much official. "Affordable housing" can now be retired to the Platitude Hall of Fame.

In recent years it's been talked about by all kind of luminaries and nothing has been achieved. A year or two ago, it became the focus of the County's Growth Task Force but beyond tweaking zoning and development guidelines, that initiative has little to show.

When public officials have tried to create affordable housing, their plans have imploded. Mayor Oscar Goodman has long insisted that plans for Union Park, the 61 acres downtown, include affordable housing for nurses, police, teachers, firefighters and other admired public employees, whose salaries cannot afford middle-class housing. But that plan has apparently died because the developer, Related Cos., could not meet the mayor's deadlines.

If a single developer were creating Union Park, the more commercial projects could subsidize the cost of building affordable housing. Now we have one building at a time, so that is off the table.

And here's another sign that we are not serious about affordable housing: We have never discussed the eligibility criteria.

Would it be income-based? Would couples be eligible based on the public employee's income, irrespective of their total income? How long would the employee have to serve before he/she would own the house or apartment outright?

Mortgage money set aside by the city of Las Vegas is still unspent because the 10-year service requirement and living within the city limits are too onerous for anyone -- yes, anyone -- to take up the offer.

And look at the sorry history of BLM auctions. Last week Interior Secretary Gail Norton handed out somee goodies to local governments -- public works fundingfrom land sales.

That money is icing on the cake. Local governments love the BLM auctions because they all but guarantee master-planned communities to develop a strong middle-class tax base.

In 2003, for example, North Las Vegas Mayor Michael Montandon pegged Sun City Aliante as the highlight of the city's year. Green Valley's very existence depended on demand for master-planned communities. And the city of Las Vegas is the silent partner in Summerlin's zealous enforcement of design and zoning laws because it is as interested as the residents in maintaining property values.

And nothing will hurt property values like pickups parked in the driveway or that recurring bane of suburban living -- the basketball hoop.

The one time a municipality did try to incorporate affordable housing, developers refused to play ball because the mandates would have been too burdensome. When Henderson asked for affordable housing, the market said, in effect, the cost of those mandates meant no housing project would pencil out.

Of course, when Henderson lifted the requirements the sale netted the BLM hundreds of millions of dollars.

And Preview Las Vegas a couple of weeks back showed how little enthusiasm there is for a real plan. The man the chamber brought in to discuss affordable housing was greeted with polite, or perhaps it was stunned, silence.

Florida Attorney Charles Siemon is no radical. He has done a lot of consulting work for local governments but he has also acted for developers trying to increase density on their projects and worked to cut back requirements such as parking spaces and large lots that hurt the bottom line.

Siemon says we are victims of our own housing success. The continued boom of the American suburb depended on cheap land that is no longer available. When consultants like Applied Analysis say there is less than 10 years' worth of developable land in the valley, we are facing a crisis.

But the question is, "Whose crisis?" It's not really a crisis for local governments because they see long-term prosperity in affluent homeowners. None is volunteering to create the first public employee ghetto in the valley.

At least, that's what their actions say. None has asked for a special allotment of BLM land to create affordable housing. The 1998 law under which the bureau runs its auctions allows government agencies to make the case for land grants outside the auction process. That's how UNLV got its North Las Vegas campus and the Veterans Administration got land for a new hospital.

Siemon told Preview, "There is a sense of energy that you have that gives you the capacity to make things happen that won't happen in other parts of the country."

But it's really hard to see much energy going into any of his solutions in Southern Nevada. We've already tried and dropped mandates for affordable housing.

The idea of publicly owned land to take that out of the housing equation also seems dead on arrival.

Why? Because for all those 20-somethings trying to get into the housing market, there are 30-, 40-, 50- and 60-somethings who are basking in their new wealth. They have bought cars and they will pay for college educations with the money. Will they want to pay taxes to subsidize housing for government workers?

Tax money would have to be part of any equation to create land trusts or make affordable housing part of a city's infrastructure, as Siemon proposes.

Affordable housing is like eating six servings of fruit and vegetables every day. We all know we're supposed to do it, but when there's such an abundance of other good things to eat, it's hard to fill up on apples and broccoli.

It's just so much more fun building master-planned communities than creating starter homes

If you are planning to relocate in the Las Vegas area, contact us for a prompt response to any questions you have about the Las Vegas real estate market. We invite you to visit our website to view updated daily listings of Las Vegas homes at Free Las Vegas Homes MLS Search