Affordability First: Large Development Projects and Impacts on Home Values and Gentrification

What is it about?

Large, adaptive-reuse, “sustainable development” projects are all the rage these days in urban planning circles. These are projects where large pieces of abandoned or underutilized infrastructure are repurposed as centerpieces of major urban redevelopment initiatives that are couched in the rhetoric of sustainable development. Absent a fundamentally new approach to redevelopment planning that places housing affordability at the center of the process, large-scale sustainable development projects are likely to become engines of what has been termed “environmental gentrification.”

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Why is it important?

Projects like this have the power to transform communities so rapidly and dramatically that they call for a new approach to planning and implementation that I call “Affordability First.” Contrary to the traditional, rational-comprehensive model of planning in which all aspects of community needs and assets are effectively put on equal footing, the Affordability First approach recognizes that when a project is of such a scale and impact that it has the potential to spur rapid increases in land and housing costs, provisions for preserving significant housing affordability must be put in place before other aspects of the project are considered.