For the past several years, I have listened to developers assert they plan to pay a fee in lieu of building MPDUs, increasing school capacity, assuring water/sewer sufficiency, etc. Their expectation is that waivers will be granted because they asked for them. In the case of MPDU construction, the City’s goal is an increase in affordable housing (or as Alderman Shackelford says price appropriate housing) opportunities. By granting waivers to MPDU construction requirements, the City is telling developers to ignore established goals as they are just “suggestions.” Developers’ requests for waivers remind me of parenting lessons I learned (the hard way) while raising three children. When their wants exceeded (or contradicted) family values, rules and capacity, I had to say “no” to repeated requests for another pet, a bigger party, etc. even though my children used their indoor voices and said please. Please don’t let developers undermine the legitimate goals of the City for affordable housing even when they “ask” in a timely manner (their indoor voices) and “dot all the I’s and cross all the t’s” (their way of saying thank you). A waiver request is not (or should not be) a guarantee of approval! While a revision to Chapter 19 is in order to bring it more into line with Chapter 1-19 of the County Code, I suggest that Section 19-6.1 of the City’s code be eliminated. There should be no option to building the required number of MPDUs. If developers want to be part of our growing and vibrant county and city, they should be prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen—and expanding the availability of “price appropriate” housing is key.
For the past several years, I have listened to developers assert they plan to pay a fee in lieu of building MPDUs, increasing school capacity, assuring water/sewer sufficiency, etc. Their expectation is that waivers will be granted because they asked for them. In the case of MPDU construction, the City’s goal is an increase in affordable housing (or as Alderman Shackelford says price appropriate housing) opportunities. By granting waivers to MPDU construction requirements, the City is telling developers to ignore established goals as they are just “suggestions.” Developers’ requests for waivers remind me of parenting lessons I learned (the hard way) while raising three children. When their wants exceeded (or contradicted) family values, rules and capacity, I had to say “no” to repeated requests for another pet, a bigger party, etc. even though my children used their indoor voices and said please. Please don’t let developers undermine the legitimate goals of the City for affordable housing even when they “ask” in a timely manner (their indoor voices) and “dot all the I’s and cross all the t’s” (their way of saying thank you). A waiver request is not (or should not be) a guarantee of approval! While a revision to Chapter 19 is in order to bring it more into line with Chapter 1-19 of the County Code, I suggest that Section 19-6.1 of the City’s code be eliminated. There should be no option to building the required number of MPDUs. If developers want to be part of our growing and vibrant county and city, they should be prepared to do whatever it takes to make that happen—and expanding the availability of “price appropriate” housing is key.