“The county’s pretty homogenous in terms of, I think, 90% of owner-occupied housing is four bedrooms or more,” Knutson said. “That’s really not the future in terms of the growing demand pool. Forty-five percent of the households have one or two occupants, so you can sort of see the dichotomy. We have lots of four-bedroom houses, and the future is going to be an extremely different type of house.”
One of the largest projects in the county, Kincora, would add 2,400 units near the interchange of Route 7 and Route 28. But previous county priorities have hampered developer Tritec Real Estate‘s ability to start construction sooner, principal Daniel Coughlan said during the summit.
“Our affordable housing project here at Kincora was the first project we did here, and it was painful in some ways, honestly,” Coughlan said.
Tritec applied for tax credits to help fund the project, but because of the county’s previous rules against clustering housing in a mixed-use development, the developer’s need for a zoning variance delayed its ability to secure a tax credit for another year.
Coughlan said he is supportive of the UHNSP, but said county leaders need to be more supportive of developers after years of anti-development and anti-density policy.
“It is something the county has to realize they have to work with the developers on,” he said. “At the end of the day, affordable and obtainable housing is a supply issue. If you don’t have the supply, it’s going to exacerbate the situation.”
Read the full article at Bisnow.
