Housing issues key in city race

Housing issues key in city race Candidates differ widely on affordability, planning, development

It could be argued that Lawrence is living in the worst of two worlds when it comes to affordable housing.

In the one world, Lawrence households earn an average $39,183 per year, which is about 5 percent less than the statewide average, according to the 2000 Census. But in the other world, Lawrence homes are among the highest priced in the state, with an average selling price of $180,526 in 2004, according to statistics from the Douglas County Appraiser's office.

It is not that way everywhere. Lawrence residents only have to look to the west and east to see differences. In Manhattan, the state's other university-oriented community, incomes also are lower than the state's average. Median household incomes there are about $34,000. But the difference is that the average selling price of a home in 2004 was $43,000 less than in Lawrence.

To the east in Johnson County, the world looks a lot different. Housing prices there are generally higher than in Lawrence. In Olathe, the average selling price was $195,758, and $246,943 in Overland Park. But median household incomes are more than $65,000 a year, or 62 percent above the statewide average.

Those are the numbers that the next batch of Lawrence city commissioners, who will be chosen by voters April 5, likely will spend a significant amount of time pondering. On the campaign trail, the five remaining candidates in the race spend a lot of time talking about the issue of affordable housing. But their approaches are varied.

Some say the community needs more building lots; some say older homes are the only source of affordable housing left. Still others say fees should be added to new development to help fund city efforts to support affordable housing. Some candidates even have expressed a willingness to discuss issues such as rent control.

Tom Bracciano, the fourth-place finisher in the March 1 primary, said the situation was critical and the stakes for the community high.

"The risk is that we become a bedroom community," Bracciano said. "We will have people who leave town in the morning and come home at night, and when that happens you lose a lot of sense of community. I really wouldn't want to live in a bedroom community."

Incumbent David Schauner, the third-place finisher in the primary, isn't so sure the issue hasn't been manipulated by the city's building industry.

"I don't really have any evidence to tell me that Lawrence is any better or any worse than any other community," Schauner said. "This whole notion that we have an affordable housing problem is a misnomer.

"People who have an economic incentive to make money by building have an incentive to create the impression that we need to hurry up and build more because that is how they make more money."

Here's a look at what each of the five candidates has said about the housing issue.

Amyx, the top finisher in the March 1 primary, said the problem Lawrence faces is a tough one, in part, because the underlying cause is positive.

"The real problem is that we live in a real estate market that is extremely good," Amyx said.

Amyx said he believed part of the rising cost of homes had to do with the tight supply of building lots in the community.

"We can't control the housing market, but we can look at the areas that we have available to build in," Amyx said.

He said he would consider opening up new areas for residential development but also wanted to explore ways that the city could receive reasonable assurances that a certain number of the homes in new neighborhoods fell into a price range that the community considered affordable.

Like all the candidates, Amyx said the other way the community needed to address affordable housing was to attract higher paying jobs. He said the fact the city's median income was below the state average concerned him, and he didn't think it could be explained entirely by the fact that the figure includes a number of Kansas University students.

"The university is here, but we don't need to be hiding behind that," Amyx said. "When we see our median income is 5 percent lower than the state's, we have to figure out a way to get those wages up. There are not ifs, ands or buts about that."

Amyx said he generally thought the community's economic development efforts were headed in the right direction. He said he wanted to review the planning process to make sure it was fair and efficient in its treatment of businesses.

Bracciano frequently talks about the need to focus on older homes as a solution to the city's affordable housing issues. Bracciano said too many of the city's older homes were being used for rental properties instead of providing home ownership opportunities for younger families.

He said the city needed to focus on making infrastructure improvements in older neighborhoods in hopes that it would spur home ownership.

"I think we really have ignored some of our older areas of town, and I think that needs to end," Bracciano said.

Bracciano said he would like to review possible tax breaks and other incentives to spur private investment in the neighborhoods.

City officials in 2000 changed the city's zoning code to make it illegal for more than three unrelated people to live in a single family home. That was done as an effort to slow the conversion of single family homes into rentals. Bracciano said he didn't particularly like the change -- he said he would have preferred more of an incentive approach -- but would not make any attempts to alter the ordinance.

On the issue of attracting better jobs, Bracciano said he didn't want the city to fall into the trap of trying to attract only a certain type of job -- such as life science jobs. He also said he thought the city had some work to do in creating a reputation as a business-friendly community. He said he had heard from businesses who thought the city's planning process was too slow and the rules too often changed.

"There is a bit of a concern about our business climate," Bracciano said. "There is a question of how welcoming we are in Lawrence."

Carpenter, the fifth-place finisher in the primary, said past city officials had not done enough to study the issue.

For example, he said communities like New York City have instituted rent control as a way of battling affordability. He said it was possible the city's zoning code also could be structured to put a cap on the number of rental homes in a neighborhood.

"They may be ideas the community decides it doesn't want to pursue, but we ought to at least talk about them," Carpenter said.

Carpenter said he also wanted to discuss the ordinance that prohibits more than three unrelated people from living in a single family home. He said there should be discussion about reducing the number to two unrelated people.

One strategy Carpenter is not interested in is the creation of large numbers of new building lots to keep up with the demand for housing.

"This is not a problem that we're going to grow our way out of," Carpenter said. "It is tied much more to the incomes available to people who work here."

On the economic development front, Carpenter said he didn't want the city to forget about small, locally owned businesses.

"I think local businesses pay better than chains because it seems like they have a greater investment in their employees," Carpenter said.

He said the city should study ideas to help small businesses, like creating a group health insurance plan that businesses could buy into. He also said the city may want to consider creating a forgivable loan program that could be used as an incentive to offer businesses that want to expand or relocate in Lawrence. He said a forgivable loan may be better than a tax abatement because it would protect the city's investment better if a company decided to leave the community.

Hack, the second place finisher in the primary who is seeking her second term on the commission, has been a strong supporter of a land trust concept for the community.

The concept would allow low-to-moderate income residents the chance to buy homes, but the land the homes sit on would be owned by a not-for-profit land trust organization. That could reduce the price of a home by $30,000 or more based on current land prices.

In exchange, the land trust would limit how much the home could be sold for in the future.

"What appeals to me is the system could keep those homes affordable for the long term," Hack said.

"We're on the right course," Hack said. "We have a very aggressive economic development plan. We have people who are working hard to tell the Lawrence story. I think we have the fundamental pieces of the puzzle."

Hack, though, said she believed the city needed to look at its planning process to ensure that businesses feel comfortable working with it.

Schauner, who was elected to his first term on the commission two years ago, said the term affordable housing didn't properly characterize the issue the city was facing. He said every home built in Lawrence was affordable to someone. Instead, he thinks the community needs to focus on providing low-to-moderate income housing.

"I think the focus ought to be much more about raising incomes than lowering housing prices," Schauner said.

Schauner said the City Commission had little control over the factors that go into the price of a home. But he said he would support considering a new mortgage fee that would be charged to deeds filed in the county. The fee could be used to fund the city's housing trust fund or other programs to provide incentives for home ownership to low-to-moderate income residents.

"Home ownership probably is the greatest invention America ever came up with," Schauner said. "We need to create a package of tools that we can make available to the consuming public at that low-to-moderate income level."

On the economic development front, Schauner said the community needed to answer some basic questions.

"Do we agree on who we want to attract, and do we have a place to put them if we do attract them?" Schauner asked.

Schauner said he was concerned the community had a shortage of large lot industrial or business park locations. He's among a group of commissioners pushing for the designation of an area southeast of Lawrence to be used for a new business park. Others have suggested it should be used for residential development.

But Schauner said the community also should work on honing its economic development message. He said the program had improved in recent years but there needed to be a continued focus on attracting high-tech jobs to the area.

"I think the future of the city lies in how successful we are in utilizing our greatest asset: the university," Schauner said. "We have to do a better job of collaborating with the wealth-creation aspects of our community."

"affordable housing." is housing whose cost has been shifted to other people to pay.

I didn't write this, but it's true.

Property values have gone through the roof in the desirable places to live. That is, California, for example. Prices are still relatively cheap in the less desirable places....COLD weather places.....to live.
Those who LIVE in cold places can't afford them because their wages are low, but the California folks have their PICK of cold places to buy in. Retired folks (as low as 55 years old) CAN buy homes......if they are willing to leave California and move to less friendly climates.

I went to a planning department meeting in my county. The county was about to approve a cost shifted housing development on county owned land given to an NGO to manage. There were people from a pressure group giving testimony about cost shifted housing. Several were retirees from Texas who wanted to move to California and live on the coast, therefore they wanted the government to provide them with low cost(to them) housing. They got it.

So the people working in this county, especially the younger people starting families get hosed because they cannot afford to compete with the government when it comes to housing purchases,and they end up subsidizing these retirees homes through taxes and cost shifint,jeopardizing their own ability to purchase themselves.

So the people working in this county, especially the younger people starting families get hosed because they cannot afford to compete with the government when it comes to housing purchases,and they end up subsidizing these retirees homes through taxes and cost shifint,jeopardizing their own ability to purchase themselves

Well, that sucks big time.

This action is an unconstitutional usurpation of rights by the government. The government must grant equal rights, not special rights to seniors or anyone else. This also shows how the government intereference in the free market hurts everybody, because it violates the right to equal protection, and also sets up a sort of command economy in the housing market. The government commands cost shifted housing be built, then the next thing you know thats the only kind of housing they will permit to be built.

Its just wrong and very unAmerican.

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