Archinect - News

ADU construction is now outpacing single-family developments in Seattle

2023-04-10T16:39:00-04:00

The simplest takeaway from Seattle’s new report is that ADU production is up. The city granted permits to 988 units last year, and more than 650 were built — not all projects are built during the year they get permitted — outpacing the construction of single houses for the first time

As the Seattle Times reports, a change in regulations in 2019 led to the ADU boom locally. The city will now permit up to two ADU developments per lot, leading to a better-than-predicted 1,336 units being constructed against a total of 554 single-family homes being razed over a two-year period ending in 2022.

Seattle is estimated to need an additional 55,000 units of housing per year for the next two decades, over half of which need to be reserved for households that qualify as low-income. The report indicated builders' acceptance in terms of adaptation thus far. Citywide, two-thirds of all new single-family designs built last year included at least one ADU in their construction.

Framing Atlanta’s BeltLine as a font for gentrification

2023-02-03T13:22:00-05:00

Although the BeltLine was designed to connect Atlantans and improve their quality of life, it has driven up housing costs on nearby land and pushed low-income households out to suburbs with fewer services than downtown neighborhoods. The BeltLine has become a prime example of what urban scholars call “green gentrification” – a process in which restoring degraded urban areas by adding green features drives up housing prices and pushes out working-class residents.

Atlanta’s in-progress 22-mile-long urban greenway is often cited alongside New York’s High Line and Houston’s Buffalo Bayou Park as developments that spurred displacement in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a concern echoed by opponents of the LA River Master Plan in recent years.

Georgia State University Professor of Urban Studies Dan Immergluck points to the BeltLine’s under-delivery of affordable housing in areas where property values exploded after its TIF was adopted in 2005 as its main flaw. The “urban regime” initiative to lure tech and other high-paying companies using tax incentives is also a factor. Between 1990 and 2019, Atlanta lost one-fifth (receding from 67% to 48%) of its Black population due to gentrification.

New leadership is attempting to address the issue through inclusionary zoning. Meanwhile, the BeltLine's CEO Clyde Higgs has admitted to past oversights and says they are now tracking the problem proactively in order to identify areas that “may re...

Nonprofit group seeks to gut L.A.'s most successful affordable housing reforms

2019-09-04T13:15:00-04:00

The city’s [Transit-Oriented Communities] program has been touted as one of City Hall’s most successful initiatives for producing affordable housing. Since it was launched in late 2017, developers have proposed nearly 20,000 new homes, nearly 3,900 of which would be kept affordable for lower-income households, according to the latest data from the planning department.

The notorious Los Angeles NIMBY group Fix The City has filed a lawsuit targeting the city's Transit Oriented Communities (TOC) program, arguing that the program, widely approved by a 2016 voter referendum, violates city and state laws and was not properly vetted by the public.

Alex Comisar, a spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's office, speaking with The Los Angeles Times, called the "lawful and essential" program "an incredible weapon" for bringing housing affordability to the city, adding, "The mayor believes this program is a critical tool for getting new affordable housing units built across the city."