I share your frustration with how broken the housing system is. But your proposal for the state or city to build housing directly at scale needs to look at the math.
Look at the $97 million it took to redevelop Curtis Apartments, with an average cost of $750,000 per unit (and the state didn’t even need to buy the land). Lakeside Apartments cost more than $ 500,000; Residences on Lincoln Square providing affordable apartments for seniors is projected to cost over $600,000 per unit.
At those costs, even with financing spread over decades, the rents required to fully carry those costs would be far above what most residents can afford. That gap has to be filled with an ongoing subsidy. That means higher taxes, reallocation of scarce public dollars, or both.
So while it’s fair to criticize outcomes, local governments can’t, on their own, change the underlying economics of construction or the incomes needed to support those costs. The levers that would shift that equation largely sit at the federal level.
Where cities and states do have real leverage is on the supply side: Reform zoning to allow more density where people want to live; streamline permitting and approvals to reduce time and cost; Revisit building requirements, including pausing elements of the stretch code; Remove barriers to manufactured and modular housing.
Those steps won’t solve everything, but they can meaningfully reduce costs and so increase supply. But we can’t pretend the math works for the state and its taxpayers when it doesn’t or that the state or city can fix what must be fixed at the national level.
I share your frustration with how broken the housing system is. But your proposal for the state or city to build housing directly at scale needs to look at the math.
Look at the $97 million it took to redevelop Curtis Apartments, with an average cost of $750,000 per unit (and the state didn’t even need to buy the land). Lakeside Apartments cost more than $ 500,000; Residences on Lincoln Square providing affordable apartments for seniors is projected to cost over $600,000 per unit.
At those costs, even with financing spread over decades, the rents required to fully carry those costs would be far above what most residents can afford. That gap has to be filled with an ongoing subsidy. That means higher taxes, reallocation of scarce public dollars, or both.
So while it’s fair to criticize outcomes, local governments can’t, on their own, change the underlying economics of construction or the incomes needed to support those costs. The levers that would shift that equation largely sit at the federal level.
Where cities and states do have real leverage is on the supply side: Reform zoning to allow more density where people want to live; streamline permitting and approvals to reduce time and cost; Revisit building requirements, including pausing elements of the stretch code; Remove barriers to manufactured and modular housing.
Those steps won’t solve everything, but they can meaningfully reduce costs and so increase supply. But we can’t pretend the math works for the state and its taxpayers when it doesn’t or that the state or city can fix what must be fixed at the national level.
We spent 157 million on a minor league baseball park
I think you're making the point that maybe the city shouldn't be in the real estate development business after all.