Small multi-family projects should relieve some demand for housing. But, in most cases, their prices are beyond the reach of working residents, showing the need for city affordability efforts.
While I agree, with the overall discussion about lack of affordable housing in Brevard, there are some concerns: Do we really need super dense development that will change this small city feel into a burgeoning suburb? Can Brevard’s public services (roads, police, fire, hospitals, schools, sewer and water supply) handle a massive increase in year round residents without a major tax increase on real estate? Will current residents be able to review detailed information from developers about their proposals & potential impacts? With a fast influx of new residents, can the city cope with the inevitable increase in crime?
Dan’s review shows clearly that most working residents cannot afford the multi-family housing now being built. And Mayor Pro Tem Daniel asserts “the market is not going to take care of it.” In this light, Planning Director Ray’s assessment that “piecemeal measures” are the only solutions is fatalist. It would be far better to promote consensus long term goals by which to inspire and evaluate incremental projects.
Safe and sanitary housing is but one requisite of the venerable “good life,” the ultimate promise of human well-being. Four necessities - housing, transportation, food, and health care - now consume 80% of low incomes. That income would increase from work that utilizes the rainbow of human aptitudes and abilities (philosopher John Rawls and psychologist Abraham Maslow). Yet such diverse labor is not valued in an economy dominated by finance, artificial intelligence, and monopoly business.
I focus mainly on Alfonse’s comments because they are widely shared and they obstruct progress toward an inclusive and dynamic good life. In brief, (1) the only “super-dense development” and “massive increase in year-round residents” on the horizon are in the stalled “City Camper,” a 120-room luxury hotel for well-heeled tourists and their automobiles. (2) Wear-and-tear on public services and a “massive increase in taxes” will most likely result not from an influx of the poor, but from absentee investment in disregard of Brevard’s master plan. (3) “Current residents (did) have access to plans and impacts,” but government did not to my knowledge disseminate analysis of public input in relation to private negotiations. (4) The link between low-income residents and crime is simply unproven. (5) Letting “developers have free reign” will not bring “ghettos” but only more single-family homes for upper incomes.
Alfonse’s sixth assertion is more complicated. “Personal responsibility” for self-improvement is obstructed today by a political economy of technology, globalism, and wealth. In recent letters to The Transylvania Times, I summarized Nobel economist Edmund Phelps’ documentation of a half century of economic and cultural decay and its narrowing the space for individual initiative (“Mass Flourishing,” 2013). The disruptions of Civil Rights, Vietnam, and stagflation prompted a post-1970 ideological war against government, democracy and fair taxation and for concentrated industry and money.
None of the ideas above are mine. They are in the social sciences as well as the humanities: the studies of history, ethics, law, religion, the arts, and government. Regrettably these “social studies” have been relegated to the margins of today’s core curricula in business and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Among the lessons patriots might bring to the housing discussion are:
(1) Modest shelter cannot result from speculation in immodest shelter. Brevard is just a tiny arena in the nation-wide aggregation of real estate by purely investment interests (New York Times, 8/15/23: “A Private Equity Firm Might Be Your Next Landlord”). The writer Wendell Berry cautions, “we must learn to live smaller.”
(2) Most crime by the under-served does not measure up to the injustice of depriving them of engaging labor and other necessities of life. In a wise letter to The Transylvania Times 9/23, Hal Voege wondered if the absence of “meaningful, constructive work” explains present-day despair, and if infrastructure now built only by large corporations could be “broken into projects people could do ... utilizing a wide variety of talents.”
(3) New Urbanism - a cornerstone of Brevard’s master plan - “promotes walkable neighborhoods with a range of housing options and job types.” This “mixed use” approach to urban planning and notable examples are at https://www.cnu.org/what-we-do/charter-awards. City Camper is not mixed use under any objective reading of new urbanism.
(4) American tourists marvel at historic mixed-use buildings lining the streets of London, Paris, Brussels, and Berlin. With cafes, meat-and-fish markets, kindergartens, bakeries, and social services at the sidewalks, apartments above, and groceries, schools and work within walking distance, these 3-to-5 story iconic structures still anchor vibrant urban life. Cycles and bikes are curbside, cars gone.
(5) Conspicuously absent in the European downtowns are the inefficient duplexes, townhouses, condominiums and small apartment complexes - the so-called “missing middle housing” recommended by reader Billy Parrish. Precisely because missing middle structures are “compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes,” they are not compatible with the more economical “mid-rise” buildings actually needed (see the graphic in https://missingmiddlehousing.com/).
(6) This old/new urbanism informs emerging American experiments in subordinating cars, roads, and parking to localized human flourishing. Reviewing new books by Ben Goldfarb and Henry Graybar, Bill McKibben notes that Tucson, Boston, Syracuse, and Los Angeles are moving forthrightly “Toward a Land of Buses and Bikes” (New York Review of Books, 10/5/23).
To be sure, the path forward will difficult. Nevertheless, if galvanized now by democracy and patriotism, the struggle could get us through the perilous 21st Century. Here are some “piecemeal” steps to take:
(1) Acknowledge multi-faceted “despair:” loneliness, addiction, suicide, poverty, tribalism, national disaffection, ad infinitum. Hopelessness will only worsen under climate deterioration and increasing hate and war. An early depiction of this fragmentation and polarization was Benjamin Barber’s 1995 “Jihad vs. McWorld,” “the one driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets,” and both marked by anarchy.
(2) Publicize and advocate the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (https://www.cityofbrevard.com/DocumentCenter/View/4616/Brevard-Adopted-CLUP-Reduced). Among its many under-appreciated “existing conditions” (pps. 14-23) are excessive land paved over for free parking, excess land owned by large institutions, “a service-based economy (with) fewer blue- and white-color jobs and lower incomes overall,” and only 2% of the population in construction.
(3) Re-consider the multi-story “apartment houses” with first-floor amenities on multi-transit streets. In 2022 CLUB workshops, significantly more participants recommended “live/work units and mixed-use buildings 3-4 stories” over seven other housing typologies.
(4) Form an assertive “Citizens United for a Flourishing Brevard,” comprised of healthcare workers, educators, parishioners, civic group members, major employers, et al. Such a broad coalition of voters would surpass the individual citizen engagement invited by Mayor Copelof (Times, 9/4/23), and it would expand the reigning quartet of housing actors: government, developers, funders, and property owners (Times, 5/15/23). Suggestive is the recent plea by cooperating Brevard clergy “to see every human being as a person worthy of respect and dignity” (Transylvania Times , 9/18/23).
In closing, I again relate Brevard’s housing shortage to the national inequity of economic well-being documented by the economist Phelps. He situates US decline in dual welfare programs: one for business and wealth, the other for the poor and disabled. The former consists of federal tax breaks contributing to financial concentration and perennial budget deficits. In 2022, two hundred tax subsidies totaled $1.7 trillion, which exceeded the $1.4 trillion deficit and even more the individual costs of Social Security and Medicare (www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/tax-expenditures). Just five subsidies - for investment profit (capital gains), private health and retirement programs, foreign income, and mortgage interest - constitute over half the deficit. They mask the most expensive medical care and the highest inequality among prosperous nations. Moreover, they underlie lost economic dynamism, i.e., Council Member Daniel’s market failure.
Phelps “Mass Flourishing” is subtitled “How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change.” He closes with this call: “If we are to embark on reform we will need this time to expound our values and aims: to explain what sort of careers and economic life are most rewarding, what kind of economy would promote a good life, and how it can offer justice toward all.” No other sentence in the book more clearly puts economics at the service of human and planetary welfare.
This is the problem with too much tourism. Permanent residents are stuck with low paid service jobs and cannot afford single family homes they can own. This makes the economic base unstable in the long run. But right now, if these proposed housing units are not subsidized, the income still isn't affordable for most people, according to the article's figures.
How does too much tourism force residents to be stuck with low paymg jobs? Isn’t it the personal responsibility of the individual to develop themself by seeking training, education and more? If there was “just the right amount” of tourism what exactly would that be and how would residents suddenly have higher wages? Please double check your logic on that aspect.
I agree that Brevard has many low wage jobs in the service industry & that there is an “affordable” housing shortage here. Someone needs to push a public/private partnership to develop attractive apartments at the very least. This can be achieved with proper planning & public input through zoning hearings. To let developers have free reign, will result in these becoming “the projects” or modern ghettos of Brevard; and then we will have ruined a beautiful city.
Yes, public-private partnerships are necessary. That's what fairhaven is. Don't think they will be slums because idea is to mix affordable in throughout the city, and places like Broad River Terrace, our last all-age low-income tax credit project, show affordable can be pretty nice. If people get training and education, they won't be in service jobs. The service jobs won't become higher paying to accommodate them.
Missing Middle Housing development allows for a much more scalable approach to neighborhood infill development. Building duplexes or quads or six-plexes is less expensive per square foot than single family housing while being more single family neighborhood friendly. Of course they aren't as cost effective as low income housing tax credit apartment complexes, but they are one viable strategy to create housing that is more attainable. Here is a link to learn more about Missing Middle Housing: https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
Thanks, Dan, for addressing the affordable housing issue. For a different perspective, see my 8/31 "City Camper" letter to the Transylvania Times. In short, it suggests adding an assertive "Citizens United for a Flourishing Brevard" to the conversation now limited to government, developers and property owners.
If you will advise on how to negotiate the complex guidelines for contributing to Substack, and also the appropriate length of a submission, I will attempt to "Start Writing." Ken
While I agree, with the overall discussion about lack of affordable housing in Brevard, there are some concerns: Do we really need super dense development that will change this small city feel into a burgeoning suburb? Can Brevard’s public services (roads, police, fire, hospitals, schools, sewer and water supply) handle a massive increase in year round residents without a major tax increase on real estate? Will current residents be able to review detailed information from developers about their proposals & potential impacts? With a fast influx of new residents, can the city cope with the inevitable increase in crime?
Hello, this Ken again. Is anyone there?
Dan’s review shows clearly that most working residents cannot afford the multi-family housing now being built. And Mayor Pro Tem Daniel asserts “the market is not going to take care of it.” In this light, Planning Director Ray’s assessment that “piecemeal measures” are the only solutions is fatalist. It would be far better to promote consensus long term goals by which to inspire and evaluate incremental projects.
Safe and sanitary housing is but one requisite of the venerable “good life,” the ultimate promise of human well-being. Four necessities - housing, transportation, food, and health care - now consume 80% of low incomes. That income would increase from work that utilizes the rainbow of human aptitudes and abilities (philosopher John Rawls and psychologist Abraham Maslow). Yet such diverse labor is not valued in an economy dominated by finance, artificial intelligence, and monopoly business.
I focus mainly on Alfonse’s comments because they are widely shared and they obstruct progress toward an inclusive and dynamic good life. In brief, (1) the only “super-dense development” and “massive increase in year-round residents” on the horizon are in the stalled “City Camper,” a 120-room luxury hotel for well-heeled tourists and their automobiles. (2) Wear-and-tear on public services and a “massive increase in taxes” will most likely result not from an influx of the poor, but from absentee investment in disregard of Brevard’s master plan. (3) “Current residents (did) have access to plans and impacts,” but government did not to my knowledge disseminate analysis of public input in relation to private negotiations. (4) The link between low-income residents and crime is simply unproven. (5) Letting “developers have free reign” will not bring “ghettos” but only more single-family homes for upper incomes.
Alfonse’s sixth assertion is more complicated. “Personal responsibility” for self-improvement is obstructed today by a political economy of technology, globalism, and wealth. In recent letters to The Transylvania Times, I summarized Nobel economist Edmund Phelps’ documentation of a half century of economic and cultural decay and its narrowing the space for individual initiative (“Mass Flourishing,” 2013). The disruptions of Civil Rights, Vietnam, and stagflation prompted a post-1970 ideological war against government, democracy and fair taxation and for concentrated industry and money.
None of the ideas above are mine. They are in the social sciences as well as the humanities: the studies of history, ethics, law, religion, the arts, and government. Regrettably these “social studies” have been relegated to the margins of today’s core curricula in business and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics).
Among the lessons patriots might bring to the housing discussion are:
(1) Modest shelter cannot result from speculation in immodest shelter. Brevard is just a tiny arena in the nation-wide aggregation of real estate by purely investment interests (New York Times, 8/15/23: “A Private Equity Firm Might Be Your Next Landlord”). The writer Wendell Berry cautions, “we must learn to live smaller.”
(2) Most crime by the under-served does not measure up to the injustice of depriving them of engaging labor and other necessities of life. In a wise letter to The Transylvania Times 9/23, Hal Voege wondered if the absence of “meaningful, constructive work” explains present-day despair, and if infrastructure now built only by large corporations could be “broken into projects people could do ... utilizing a wide variety of talents.”
(3) New Urbanism - a cornerstone of Brevard’s master plan - “promotes walkable neighborhoods with a range of housing options and job types.” This “mixed use” approach to urban planning and notable examples are at https://www.cnu.org/what-we-do/charter-awards. City Camper is not mixed use under any objective reading of new urbanism.
(4) American tourists marvel at historic mixed-use buildings lining the streets of London, Paris, Brussels, and Berlin. With cafes, meat-and-fish markets, kindergartens, bakeries, and social services at the sidewalks, apartments above, and groceries, schools and work within walking distance, these 3-to-5 story iconic structures still anchor vibrant urban life. Cycles and bikes are curbside, cars gone.
(5) Conspicuously absent in the European downtowns are the inefficient duplexes, townhouses, condominiums and small apartment complexes - the so-called “missing middle housing” recommended by reader Billy Parrish. Precisely because missing middle structures are “compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes,” they are not compatible with the more economical “mid-rise” buildings actually needed (see the graphic in https://missingmiddlehousing.com/).
(6) This old/new urbanism informs emerging American experiments in subordinating cars, roads, and parking to localized human flourishing. Reviewing new books by Ben Goldfarb and Henry Graybar, Bill McKibben notes that Tucson, Boston, Syracuse, and Los Angeles are moving forthrightly “Toward a Land of Buses and Bikes” (New York Review of Books, 10/5/23).
To be sure, the path forward will difficult. Nevertheless, if galvanized now by democracy and patriotism, the struggle could get us through the perilous 21st Century. Here are some “piecemeal” steps to take:
(1) Acknowledge multi-faceted “despair:” loneliness, addiction, suicide, poverty, tribalism, national disaffection, ad infinitum. Hopelessness will only worsen under climate deterioration and increasing hate and war. An early depiction of this fragmentation and polarization was Benjamin Barber’s 1995 “Jihad vs. McWorld,” “the one driven by parochial hatreds, the other by universalizing markets,” and both marked by anarchy.
(2) Publicize and advocate the Comprehensive Land Use Plan (https://www.cityofbrevard.com/DocumentCenter/View/4616/Brevard-Adopted-CLUP-Reduced). Among its many under-appreciated “existing conditions” (pps. 14-23) are excessive land paved over for free parking, excess land owned by large institutions, “a service-based economy (with) fewer blue- and white-color jobs and lower incomes overall,” and only 2% of the population in construction.
(3) Re-consider the multi-story “apartment houses” with first-floor amenities on multi-transit streets. In 2022 CLUB workshops, significantly more participants recommended “live/work units and mixed-use buildings 3-4 stories” over seven other housing typologies.
(4) Form an assertive “Citizens United for a Flourishing Brevard,” comprised of healthcare workers, educators, parishioners, civic group members, major employers, et al. Such a broad coalition of voters would surpass the individual citizen engagement invited by Mayor Copelof (Times, 9/4/23), and it would expand the reigning quartet of housing actors: government, developers, funders, and property owners (Times, 5/15/23). Suggestive is the recent plea by cooperating Brevard clergy “to see every human being as a person worthy of respect and dignity” (Transylvania Times , 9/18/23).
In closing, I again relate Brevard’s housing shortage to the national inequity of economic well-being documented by the economist Phelps. He situates US decline in dual welfare programs: one for business and wealth, the other for the poor and disabled. The former consists of federal tax breaks contributing to financial concentration and perennial budget deficits. In 2022, two hundred tax subsidies totaled $1.7 trillion, which exceeded the $1.4 trillion deficit and even more the individual costs of Social Security and Medicare (www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/tax-expenditures). Just five subsidies - for investment profit (capital gains), private health and retirement programs, foreign income, and mortgage interest - constitute over half the deficit. They mask the most expensive medical care and the highest inequality among prosperous nations. Moreover, they underlie lost economic dynamism, i.e., Council Member Daniel’s market failure.
Phelps “Mass Flourishing” is subtitled “How Grassroots Innovation Created Jobs, Challenge, and Change.” He closes with this call: “If we are to embark on reform we will need this time to expound our values and aims: to explain what sort of careers and economic life are most rewarding, what kind of economy would promote a good life, and how it can offer justice toward all.” No other sentence in the book more clearly puts economics at the service of human and planetary welfare.
This is the problem with too much tourism. Permanent residents are stuck with low paid service jobs and cannot afford single family homes they can own. This makes the economic base unstable in the long run. But right now, if these proposed housing units are not subsidized, the income still isn't affordable for most people, according to the article's figures.
How does too much tourism force residents to be stuck with low paymg jobs? Isn’t it the personal responsibility of the individual to develop themself by seeking training, education and more? If there was “just the right amount” of tourism what exactly would that be and how would residents suddenly have higher wages? Please double check your logic on that aspect.
I agree that Brevard has many low wage jobs in the service industry & that there is an “affordable” housing shortage here. Someone needs to push a public/private partnership to develop attractive apartments at the very least. This can be achieved with proper planning & public input through zoning hearings. To let developers have free reign, will result in these becoming “the projects” or modern ghettos of Brevard; and then we will have ruined a beautiful city.
Yes, public-private partnerships are necessary. That's what fairhaven is. Don't think they will be slums because idea is to mix affordable in throughout the city, and places like Broad River Terrace, our last all-age low-income tax credit project, show affordable can be pretty nice. If people get training and education, they won't be in service jobs. The service jobs won't become higher paying to accommodate them.
In order to accomplish these goals, we need to elect 40-60 year old Centrist candidates who are not as crazy ideological as Progressives or Magas.
Missing Middle Housing development allows for a much more scalable approach to neighborhood infill development. Building duplexes or quads or six-plexes is less expensive per square foot than single family housing while being more single family neighborhood friendly. Of course they aren't as cost effective as low income housing tax credit apartment complexes, but they are one viable strategy to create housing that is more attainable. Here is a link to learn more about Missing Middle Housing: https://missingmiddlehousing.com/
Thanks, Dan, for addressing the affordable housing issue. For a different perspective, see my 8/31 "City Camper" letter to the Transylvania Times. In short, it suggests adding an assertive "Citizens United for a Flourishing Brevard" to the conversation now limited to government, developers and property owners.
If you will advise on how to negotiate the complex guidelines for contributing to Substack, and also the appropriate length of a submission, I will attempt to "Start Writing." Ken