A
radical approach to providing affordable housing in pricey Jackson Hole, Wyoming
including the town of Jackson and all of Teton County, might be debate fodder
in Bend and Central Oregon as rising real estate prices hit buyers and renters
alike.
For
the past few years Bend has proscratinated over how to shift a longstanding local
mindset of single family homes on larger lots to accepting more multi-family
and mixed used residential bulding.
The
state’s more recent approval of the city’s Urban Growth Boundary plan has
essentially pointed the way—indeed, mandated--higher residential density projects
on infill land within existing boundaries.
Now
the discussion is how to balance the economics for builders accustomed to generally
higher margin single family homes on lots, against more dense development with
lower profit potential, whether the latter results from greater building costs
or smaller market demand.
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| Courtesy Jackson Hole News&Guide |
In
Bend developers pay system developement charges, or SDCs, to offset impacts on
infrastructure such as roads and services. With certain projects, single and
multi-family, builders now agree to include a percentage of affordable housing, with
eligibility depending on buyer or renter income in relation to the regional
median. One idea has been to offer reduced SDC fees as incentives for multi-family
projects.
In
Jackson and Teton County, Wyoming a new approach requires developers of
commercial projects to pay for a ratio of housing units indexed to the estimated
number of fulltime employees a project would generate. Residential builders are
also on the hook to pay for units in some way, although recent decisions have shifted
the burden more to the commercial sector.
As
might be expected, not everyone is joining hands singing, “We are the world...”
The
new regulations eliminate a moratorium imposed in March of this year on new
development proposals in Jackson. But opponents argued that the new requirements
would hurt small businesses and non-profits more than big box retailers such as
WalMart.
One
opponent quoted by the Jackson Hole News & Guide said the rules would
result in some developers opting to build “$1,000 a night” luxury hotels
instead of housing or other commercial space.
Prior
to the new rules, as an example an apartment developer was required to provide
20 affordable units in a 90-unit building. The new rules reduce that
requirement to 2.490 units, while raising the previous requirement for a 10,000 square foot office building from only 0.222 units to 4.924..
The
prevous rules were also more lenient on commercial developers whose projects generated
only seasonal employment.
The
rules were adopted separately by the City of Jackson and Teton County, each
which have their own mitigation requirements.
While Bend and Jackson Hole are both heavily reliant on service sector employment, Bend is considerably more diversified economically. And Bend's population of nearly 95,000 according to the 2017 Census dwarfs Teton County, with only 23,265.
But Bend's median rental cost, as reported by Trulia, is about $1,800 compared to the $3,200 for Jackson.
