QP We Can't Afford Metro's Affordable Housing

Metro promised voters affordable housing. Instead, its 2018 housing bond has produced some of the least affordable subsidized units in Oregon history.Why? Metro insisted on funding almost exclusively three to six story buildings—projects that require elevators, oversized common areas, and far more concrete and steel than low rise construction. Those choices alone drove costs up by 50 percent per livable square foot. One project in Hollywood, an 11-story tower, cost nearly double that.Metro also limited development to nonprofit builders. That sounds frugal, but it isn’t. Nonprofits typically take about 12 percent in developer fees, then they hire the same for profit contractors who build market rate housing. Studies show that nonprofit led projects cost about 20 percent more per square foot than for profit ones.The result? Metro’s subsidized units average $490,000 per apartment—for just 700 square feet. That’s roughly $700 per square foot, two to three times the cost of building a single-family home.And the damage doesn’t stop there. These projects pull scarce construction labor away from market housing, driving prices up for everyone else. Meanwhile, property taxes used to repay the bond make homeownership even harder for working families.Metro says it’s solving an affordability crisis. In reality, its density first policies helped create it—and its housing program is making it worse. We can’t afford Metro’s affordable housing.Read the report at cascadepolicy.org. I’m Naomi Inman.