Dive Brief:
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After adding thousands of apartment and condominium units in the last decade and a half, the District of Columbia may soon see an end to its residential construction surge as population growth there tapers, according to The Washington Post.
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Meanwhile, continued home-price increases could fuel greater out-migration while discouraging prospective young adult renters and buyers from moving to DC in the first place. As the District grapples with a shortage of affordable housing, the shift among residents to its Maryland and Virginia suburbs for lower-cost housing is pushing real estate and rental prices upward in those areas, too.
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The impact is being felt strongly among middle-income renters and buyers. Writing for The Post, architect Roger Lewis suggested that a "quasi-governmental" housing group for the District and its suburbs could assist local housing authorities in creating and maintaining workforce housing there.
Dive Insight:
DC isn't the only major U.S. metro struggling to find ways to generate and maintain affordable housing options for its residents and newcomers, particularly in the category of workforce rental housing, which typically addresses households earning 60% to 100% of the area median income.
Seattle, for example, is experiencing a development boom thanks to an influx of tech companies planting roots in its downtown. Meanwhile, affordable housing legislation passed in August that will require apartment and condo developers to plan more affordable units in their developments or pay into a separate fund.
In January, New Jersey's Supreme Court ruled that towns would need to make up for a backlog in affordable housing inventory that stemmed from the state's not mandating such units between 1999 and 2015. Critics of the measure say the state should be responsible for making up the difference, not the local communities. In Massachusetts, the first project under MassHousing's $100 million Workforce Housing Initiative broke ground late last year and will add 71 units north of Boston.
On the West Coast, where the affordable housing crunch is being felt most acutely, Los Angeles officials have set aside more than $37 million to fund such projects in the city, with $18 million in loans for five affordable housing projects in South Los Angeles.
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