{"id":12637,"date":"2024-03-30T10:00:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T10:00:29","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"workforce-housing-new-hampshire-54445135\/","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/?p=12637","title":{"rendered":"Everybody wants workforce housing but what exactly is it?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Courtesy
Courtesy rendering.A view of the village center commercial corridor of the proposed Monitor Way development.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Monitor
Monitor Way development conceptual plan, October 2023<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>

Urban planners talk a lot these days about the need to support the \u201cmissing middle.\u201d They\u2019re talking about building size \u2013 more than a house, less than a high-rise \u2013 but they could be talking about income size.<\/p>\n

For decades the free market has concentrated on single-family homes that are increasingly too expensive for many, while government assistance has concentrated on vouchers or other ways to help low-income people get housed. That has left a shortage of apartments, townhouses and homes within reach of what might be called the missing middle, the folks with a regular income who are better off than poor but far from rich.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Enter \u201cworkforce housing,\u201d a term that crops up often\u00a0these days even though it\u2019s not always certain what it means.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a\u00a0legal definition but this whole notion of workforce housing is bigger than that. \u2026. It\u2019s not a building definition but a human definition \u2013 not what <\/em>is workforce housing but who <\/em>is workforce housing,\u201d said George\u00a0Reagan, director of community engagement for New Hampshire Housing.<\/p>\n

The term is often used to describe places accessible to households making between 60% and 120% of the local median income, which in New Hampshire reflects an annual income roughly between $50,000 and $110,000, although it varies widely throughout the state. This definition, however, is far from set in stone and depends upon the financing mechanism in use or even local regulations.<\/p>\n

It differs from \u201caffordable\u201d housing, a term that usually means rent is no more than 30% of a household\u2019s gross income.<\/p>\n

The idea behind all the definitions is to help people with jobs like daycare worker, nurse, cook, driver, accountant \u2013\u00a0 all the myriad tasks that society depends upon \u2013 have a place to live nearby. The hard part is to create housing that\u2019s desirable while keeping an overheated market from sending the price into the stratosphere.<\/p>\n

Consider Monitor Way, the huge mixed-use development targeted for north Concord. Among the roughly 600 apartments, townhouses and condos in the proposal are 151 units labeled as workforce housing. This means just what it sounds like, said developer Kevin Lacasse.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is affordable housing, but affordable for those that work,\u201d said Lacasse. \u201cThey have to make a certain level of income, a minimum, to be considered but there are also maximum income limits as well. So a doctor making a ton of money wouldn\u2019t qualify.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lacasse used assistance from the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority to lower his costs so he could lower prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Housing Finance Authority is a self-supporting public corporation that was created by the state legislature back in 1981. Initially, it focused on low-income housing but in the past two decades, as single-income families have become less able to buy a house, it has expanded into workforce housing.<\/p>\n

The Finance Authority, which has a board appointed by the governor but receives no taxpayer money, channels and supports a number of federal and industry programs that lower developers\u2019 costs of building some housing, usually via tax credits or low-cost loans, in return for them lowering the purchase price or rents.<\/p>\n

The complication is that the programs are linked to\u00a0income, which requires verification and slows things down compared to the free-for-all of market-based housing. The rules can be complicated. For example, it\u2019s generally the case that a renter can\u2019t be forced to move out if their income rises above the maximum, but as income guidelines rise over time, new renters can be forced to pay more than existing tenants.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you get the funds, you have to income-qualify all the residents going in. It may require annual re-certification of all residents,\u201d said Lacasse. \u201cEvery year it\u2019s audited, the financials\u00a0are audited by third\u00a0parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Disagreements \u2013\u00a0and there are always disagreements when money and regulations are involved \u2013\u00a0can go to the state\u2019s Housing Appeals Board or even to Superior Court.<\/p>\n

Even the biggest fans of workforce housing regulations admit that it would be better if they weren\u2019t necessary, and the housing market as a whole did a better job of keeping a variety of options available for a variety of households.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of naturally occurring affordable housing is at the base of all this,\u201d said Reagan. \u201cIf you have more supply in numbers and variety, you\u2019re going to naturally have workforce housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed to some hopeful signs, including increased action at the town and state level, such as looser zoning regulations and the push to allow accessory dwelling units, once called \u201cin-law apartments,\u201d on existing properties. \u201cCommunities really do want to change things. \u2026 They understand the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, he said, modern economics remains an obstacle.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really do struggle with the inflated cost of materials, labor, just the sheer demand for housing \u2026 and the cost of financing,\u201d Reagan said.<\/p>\n

Another, more subtle, issue is the public image of housing with any kind of government oversight, said Lacasse. In people\u2019s minds, it can get lumped in with rental vouchers or other kinds of what is loosely considered \u201clow-income housing,\u201d creating an image of undesirable neighbors.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of it is getting the word out, dispelling the myth of what people assume what it is,\u201d Lacasse said. \u201cA similar myth is mobile homes. People think of them as tin cans on wheels, parks on top of one another, and don\u2019t know about (modern) manufactured housing \u2026 I think it\u2019s the same kind of idea with workforce housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Failing to solve the problem will hurt everybody, he said. \u201cWe need these services performed. If people who do them can\u2019t live in our area, they won\u2019t happen.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Urban planners talk a lot these days about the need to support the \u201cmissing middle.\u201d They\u2019re talking about building size \u2013 more than a house, less than a high-rise \u2013 but they could be talking about income size.For decades the free market has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":12638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","_newspack_byline_active":true,"_newspack_byline":"by [Author id=142]David Brooks[\/Author] Monitor staff","newspack_content_restriction_is_exempt":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,508],"tags":[24,505],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[507],"class_list":["post-12637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-headlines-cm","tag-facebook","tag-paywall","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/43275630-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12637"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12639,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12637\/revisions\/12639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12637"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fnewspack_spnsrs_tax&post=12637"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nne-concord-monitor-2.newspackstaging.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=12637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}