Building Sustainable Affordable Housing At All Income Levels

Course Details

Beyond high interest rates that currently make mortgages widely unaffordable, skyrocketing housing costs have made many cities and surrounding regions unaffordable for people who wish to work, live, and study there. At the same time, the global climate crisis makes urban regions key places of opportunity and responsibility for greening our way of life. These seem like "whack-a-mole" problems, where working on one makes the other worse, unless we understand them as aspects of complex "wicked problems" that require creative, integrated, community-inclusive solutions.

Planners face the challenge of guiding the emergence and implementation of these solutions as they help America's urban communities imagine, authorize, and fund "green" affordable housing at all income points. Such housing requires good linkages to transportation, jobs, recreation and green open spaces, education, retail, the arts, and other urban amenities. This presentation teaches how to explain, imagine, and fund ecosocially sustainable affordable housing in collaboration with community stakeholders.

Learning Outcomes

• Explain what housing affordability means and why it matters for socially sustainable communities.
• Learn how "green" affordable housing helps communities address the climate crisis and hot-button issues like short-term rentals, accessory development units, zoning restrictions, and housing affordability.
• Use nationwide examples to generate alternative solutions to the problem of funding the building of sustainable affordable housing.