Photo by Philip B. Poston
Probably the most illustrative comment in years about how serious as a city and community we are about addressing the crisis of affordable housing was lodged this week at an Aurora City Council meeting.
“I support affordable housing, just not this affordable housing.”
The eye-rolling quip was made by a resident to city lawmakers Monday night during a public hearing on a plan to turn a vacant, 2-acre lot into some really nice homes in a typical Aurora neighborhood.
The resident, who likes affordable housing anywhere but near them, lives in the Havana Heights Park community where Habitat for Humanity is hoping to build a small development called Mountain View Community.
The plan is a state-of-the-art proposal to do way more than lip-service to solving the affordable housing crisis in Aurora and across the metro area.
The land is owned by and adjacent to Mountain View United Church. They’re going to lease the land to Habitat for Humanity, and eventually the owners of 10 duplexes, for 99 years. These so-called community land leases are crucial to keeping entry-costs down for potential homeowners.
Once created, some of the monthly mortgage payments goes back to the church, which can pay off the land over time, or reinvest the money in more land for another lease someplace else.
As is too often the case, somewhere else is preferable to many people when news breaks that affordable housing is being considered in their neighborhood.
As is also often the case, like-minded Aurora city council reps who “support affordable housing, just not this affordable housing,” voted to snuff the project.
This time, councilmembers who have for months professed their concern about Aurora’s affordable housing crisis, and how they want the city to provide for affordable housing, just not this affordable housing, were Mayor Mike Coffman, and councilmembers Dave Gruber, Curtis Gardner, Marsha Berzins and Francoise Bergan.
Here’s what these vocal supporters of affordable housing, just not this affordable housing, are upset about.
Habitat for Humanity wants to build 10 duplex houses, 20 homes, on a cul de sac at the 2-acre corner of East Evans Avenue and Joliet Street. It’s two acres. Two.
Each of these duplex houses, which look just like almost all of the other houses in the neighborhood, except newer, would cost about $300,000 for qualified owners to get mortgages. The homes would be offered only to families who make no more than about 80% of the area median income or about $78,000 annually for a family of four.
The houses look like they belong in the neighborhood, which mostly sold years ago for far, far less than what these “affordable” houses will cost 20 families who consider themselves lucky to latch onto one for three-hundred-thousand large.
Yes, we live in a city where a $300,000 home is considered “affordable,” even though for hundreds of thousands of people who live here, scraping together even a down payment on a house like that, let alone the mortgage, is a dream far, far away.
But the people who get to live in these homes must have steady jobs, good credit and some amount of savings so they can qualify for a mortgage.
So, exactly then, what’s the problem here?
Parking was one complaint. Only six of the houses have driveways and garages. Everyone else has to park on the massive cul de sac or on the street along the side of the homes, where no houses currently exist.
Photo by Philip B. Poston
Yeah. Parking for this project is not a problem for anyone except, maybe, the people who live there and want to park right in front of their house on demand.
I get it, and so do you.
It’s clearly another case of “those people.” People just like the rest of us who get labeled as “others” because they never got the breaks in life to make buying a home a reachable goal.
And now, with the cost of housing and living in the area soaring while wages absolutely do not? Good luck with that.
So a bunch of people sympathetic to all this, like Habitat for Humanity, build really nice homes here and all over the country, being equally concerned about residents of communities who don’t want to see tenements thrown up for the sake of having supplied “affordable” housing.
Instead, they build sweet houses, often using volunteers to help keep the sticker price down, and now they’ve found a way to work with churches and others on land issues that keep too many families out of their own home.
It’s a great idea here, or anywhere.
I’m pretty sure future homeowners in the Mountain View Community would be far more accepting of the current residents in the area, and their city council representatives, even though some of them so far appear to make for pretty lousy neighbors.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on Twitter or Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or [email protected]
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