For the American Planning Association, affordable housing is a "supertopic" to
which special resources are being directed this year. APA recognizes
affordable housing's importance to planners, planning officials, and
their communities.
With the support of the Fannie Mae Foundation, APA
has assembled more than 100 documents and articles from APA publications
that examine the affordable housing problem in the U.S. and identify
and evaluate various solutions. These articles appear in this Affordable
Housing Reader, which is accessible to all visitors to the APA website.
Until now, many of these selections have been available solely to APA
subscribers or are out of print.
Click on a link below to access a list of affordable housing articles
from each APA source:
APA Policy
Guides
Planners have the skills and ethical responsibility to create communities
where diverse housing options are available to existing and future residents.
The Housing Policy Guide of 2006 sets forth specific policies and actions to help APA, its members, and national partners effectively address this country's housing needs.
APA Domestic
Policy Watch
In "Affordable Housing Crisis: The Silent 'Killer'," APA
Executive Director Paul Farmer, AICP, points out that "housing
affordability is no longer a problem limited to low- or very low-income
families." Some national solutions that APA supports, says Farmer,
include new federal housing production and rehabilitation programs
modeled on the many successful state and local housing trust funds.
Growing
Smart Legislative Guidebook
Model legislation for affordable housing appears in APA's Growing
Smart Legislative Guidebook, a compilation of proposed planning
and land-use control statutes, published in 2002. Two excerpts appear
as part of the affordable housing reader: a model "balanced and
affordable housing act," which is a fair-share housing system
based on a New Jersey statute, and a state housing appeals act, based
on laws from Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.
Journal of the
American Planning Association
This part of the reader provides 14 articles from APA's quarterly
journal. Two notable selections are Rolf Pendall's breakthrough article, "Local
Land Use Regulation and the Chain of Exclusion" (Spring 2000),
in which he documents the statistical relationship between certain
land-use controls and the proportional decline of racial and ethnic
residency, and Jerry Anthony's piece, "The Effects of Florida's
Growth Management Act on Housing Affordability" (Summer 2003),
in which the author finds a statistically significant relationship
between the state growth management act and the decline of housing
affordability.
PAS Memo / Public
Investment News
In "Relationship Between Affordable Rental Housing
and Market-Rate Home Values" (March 2001), Thomas O'Neill describes
the findings of a six-year study in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota.
Among them: There is little or no empirical evidence that family rental
developments that were built with housing tax credits have eroded the
values of nearby homes.
PAS Reports
Among eight selections from PAS Reports, the reader reprints
three sections from APA's extensive 2003 study, Regional Approach
to Affordable Housing. In the chapter on recommendations, the
researchers say, " The most important element in ensuring the
provision of affordable housing on a regional basis is political will
and leadership." They also contend that advocates for regional
change "must reframe the question of the need for affordable housing
as a market inefficiency to be corrected rather than as charity or
welfare for the poor or less deserving."
Planning magazine
Among the 36 selections from Planning is the November
2004 article "Massachusetts Law Still Evolving," in which Boston
Globe reporter Anthony Flint describes the impact of the state's
affordable housing appeals act, Chapter 40B. In "My 30 Years at
HUD" from August 2001, James Hoben, AICP, a retired community
planner at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, appraises
the agency's record.
Planning & Environmental
Law / Land Use Law & Zoning Digest
The reader includes 10 articles from these publications. In "Toward
'One America': A Proposed Federal Statute Prohibiting Exclusionary
Land-Use Practices and Mandating Inclusionary Policies," University
of North Carolina law professor Charles Daye proposes a provocative
federal law that would align federal policies to deal with " municipal
governmental land-use practices that prevent racial minorities or persons
of the lower economic classes from living within the municipality."
Practicing
Planner / Planners' Casebook
The entire Winter 2004 issue of this online publication was
devoted to affordable housing. Columbia University planning professor
Peter Marcuse, FAICP, in "Housing on the Defensive," exhorts
planners to "to tell the truth about real needs and real shortcomings
in programs. In budget hearings ... we need to make it clear what the
size of the problem is and to what extent the proposed action does
or does not solve the problem."
The New
Planner
In this excerpt from APA's student publication, Chris Holme,
a graduate of the regional planning program at the University of Massachusetts,
describes an intern experience with Nueva Esperanza in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Holme discovered that political and social conflicts within the city
were a significant barrier to the revitalization of the downtown. Holme
calls for a multidisciplinary approach to community development in
Holyoke, and notes the need for a regional affordable housing policy.
Zoning Practice
/ Zoning News
Among the eight articles in this section is a two-part series
by Chicago attorney Nicholas Brunick evaluating inclusionary zoning
programs across the country. Brunick concludes that mandatory programs
have been far more successful in producing affordable housing and over
a larger range of income levels than voluntary programs have been.
He documents the positive changes in housing production in five communities
that switched from voluntary to mandatory programs.
Printer-Friendly Format
