✖ Construction Reporter

Show Password Forgot Password?

Not a Member? Start a free-trial today!
Construction Reporter
  • Home
  • Services
    • Planroom
    • Printing
    • Project Upload
    • Architects & Owners
    • General Contractors
    • Subcontractors
  • Free Trial
  • Become a Member
  • Magazine
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • About
    • About
    • FAQs
    • Privacy Policy

santa fe facing unprecedented affordable housing challenge, says report

11/15/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Well over half of the people working in Santa Fe have to live elsewhere due to the city’s higher housing costs, while of those who have remained, some 6,000 individual households are spending more than half of their monthly income on rent.

Those are two of the findings of a report put together by an advisory group and officially presented to the Santa Fe City Council, looking at the growing issue of housing affordability in New Mexico’s fourth largest city.

The Affordable Housing and Livable Neighborhoods Advisory Group was appointed earlier in the year by Mayor Alan Webber and tasked with looking at the full dimensions of the housing problem and suggesting possible solutions.

Although earlier attempts in the city have been made to make more affordable housing available, says the report, the problem in Santa Fe “has gotten worse in recent years, negatively affecting the well-being of families, neighborhoods, and the economy.”

Entitled Strengthening Households and Neighborhoods by Supporting a Healthy Housing Spectrum, the document bluntly characterizes the city’s housing availability as a crisis, adding that “Hundreds of Santa Feans are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.”

The report specifically notes that in the category of rental space for working poor or low-income families, Santa Fe needs a minimum of 5,000 units that currently don’t exist.

Just under half of that number, it is recommended, should target those with household incomes of less than $25,000 annually.

The report additionally suggests that the city’s inclusionary zoning program should be updated in order to spur the construction of more “income-appropriate” rental units; and that public land be used for affordable apartment construction.

Also recommended: incentivizing new housing development through simplified and expedited land use review, and altering the Santa Fe’s land use code in order to allow for higher density infill subdivisions that could see both single-family home and multi-unit rental housing.

Santa Fe would also do well, the report suggests, by following the lead of other cities in setting up an annual affordable housing trust fund.

Providing a wider availability of affordable housing options, the report suggests, would also help to address another issue confronting Santa Fe: homelessness.

But what Santa Fe needs more than anything else, the report maintains, is additional apartment space, noting that a shortage of market-rate rental units is “pushing up the rental rates across the price spectrum and putting pressure on families with lower incomes who are in the same market for the available supply.”

By Garry Boulard

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Get stories like these right to your inbox.
    ​Sign up for our newsletter

    Subscribe

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017

    Categories

    All

AFFILIATES

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
HOME
PLANS & PRICING
FREE TRIAL
MAGAZINE​
BECOME A MEMBER
PRINTING SERVICES
FAQS
CONTACT
​ABOUT

TIMELY, RELIABLE NEWS SINCE 1949 ​Construction Reporter
​
4901 Mcleod Rd NE STE 200A
Albuquerque NM 87109


​Phone: (505)-243-9793
Toll Free: (877)-292-5793
​Fax: (505)-242-4758

Copyright © 2022 Construction Reporter
User Agreement   Privacy Policy   Archive Policy
  • Home
  • Services
    • Planroom
    • Printing
    • Project Upload
    • Architects & Owners
    • General Contractors
    • Subcontractors
  • Free Trial
  • Become a Member
  • Magazine
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • About
    • About
    • FAQs
    • Privacy Policy