TUCSON, AZ - Three City Council members last week got a first look at plans to double the amount of affordable housing downtown in 15 years. The council's Rio Nuevo subcommittee reviewed new enhancements to the city's 2004 downtown affordable housing strategies that put numbers behind 4-year-old theories. The plan calls for adding 970 units of affordable and work force housing downtown that have prices protected by contract or deed restrictions, said Emily Nottingham, the city's community services director.
It could include 100 new family apartments, 120 new senior rentals and the city's possible purchase of 100 existing houses and the rehabilitation or replacement of 300 existing structures. The numbers may be adjusted, Nottingham said. "There may be more of one and less of another," Nottingham said. Downtown has 1,056 protected affordable apartments or houses, about 12 percent of the total housing.
The 15-year plan calls for increasing that to 2,026, or about 16 percent of the market, which now has 9,141 households from Speedway to Silverlake Road/South Tucson and from Camino Santiago to Park Avenue. The City Council will consider the affordable housing enhancements in a few months, after the proposals are presented to downtown neighborhoods for comment.
Nottingham has worked closely for several months with the Rio Nuevo subcommittee to translate theories into definable measures. "It gives us a checklist and guide to aspire to," said Councilwoman Nina Trasoff, who chairs the subcommittee. Nottingham acknowledged the numbers may draw a rosy picture that relies on unknown factors such as developers building housing or construction of the modern streetcar.
But Councilman Steve Leal appreciated the high targets rather than settling for less. "You say it's a rosy picture, but we're not giving ourselves a low threshold," Leal said. Affordable housing applies to people making 80 percent or less of the city's median income, which is $29,000 for one person and $45,000 for a family of four. Work-force housing is for people earning 80 percent to 120 percent of the median income, Nottingham said.
About 34 percent of downtown housing is considered affordable, defined as $120,000 or less, she said.
Of the 200,000 households in the city, 36,000 are struggling to pay rent, she said.
About 54 percent of Tucson households own their homes, compared with the national rate of 68 percent, Nottingham said. "Affordable housing is a big issue," she said.
Source: TucsonCitizen.com