“People said housing is the most important issue and we want to see more density,” said Baldwin. Mary-Ann believes housing should be a right, not a privilege. Mary-Ann has taken decisive steps to make housing more affordable and accessible.
With single-family zoning on the way out the door, how do we implement affordable multi-family dwellings? Inspired by our Mayor, I know how we can have affordable housing within a year and bring wonderful equitable housing to our city. I dislike it when people take credit for someone else’s idea so I won’t name this after myself…Let’s call it the Mary Ann Plan. The simplicity of the plan is the beauty of it, and I take inspiration from the NFL as well! Here are the facts and the plan.
- The average apartment size in Raleigh is 958 square feet.
- The average house size in Raleigh is 1,795 square feet. Just about double.
Problem Statement – When Raleigh can fully ban single-family zoning and we move forward, and developers will only build multi-family dwellings. The hope is they’ll build those units in single-family neighborhoods, sell them at a fair price, and move us all towards housing equity. The flaws are:
- The development will take years to fill the need of Raleigh citizens looking for affordable housing. On average it takes 5 months to build a home in Raleigh and likely longer for a multi-family dwelling.
- There were 2,059 houses sold in Raleigh in August of 2021.
- The land needed for new housing is scarce and expensive in Raleigh.
Solution – The NFL has its share of inequity problems, but one thing they do well is the “draft”. Each year new talented players graduate from college and apply for jobs in the NFL. The competition for NFL teams to get the best of that crop is fierce! But the NFL has an equitable system. The weakest team each year gets first pick. The strongest teams get the last pick. This is a great solution as it moves all the teams to equity.
The “Mary Ann Plan” follows the same fair system. Here’s how it works:
- Single-Family Zoning is banned. When you sell your house, it cannot be sold as a single-family home. It can only be sold as a multifamily dwelling. So the average 1,795 square foot house in Raleigh now becomes two homes. Rather than it taking 6 months to build a multifamily dwelling it is instantly created.
- The owner is responsible for dividing the home. As profits are so high on home sales, a simple renovation so the home is a duplex (upstairs/downstairs or left entrance/right entrance) is a cost easily absorbed by the seller.
- Homes must be sub-divided into the appropriate number of dwellings, based on size, and as determined by the new Raleigh Equitable Housing Committee. A 5,000 square foot home in North Raleigh with 5 entrances already in place can certainly be turned into 5 affordable homes of 1,000 square feet each.
The Benefits – The plan is simple and the benefits are brilliant.
- The speed of creating multi-family dwellings – A house takes an average of 6 months to build and the land is scarce. If Raleigh is selling 2,000 houses a month, then at a minimum 4,000 affordable multi-family dwellings are being generated each month!!!
- Equitable Neighborhood Creation – When the best homes in Raleigh are in North Raleigh and are 10,000 square feet and turned into 10 homes for those who lived in the poorest neighborhoods in South Raleigh, housing equity is created quickly and fairly. Just like the weakest NFL teams getting the biggest lift, the city’s neediest families move up. It’s equitable. The bigger the houses the more house insecure people can enjoy the pride of ownership.
The Results – in 2016, the City of Raleigh established an aspirational goal to create 570 affordable housing units a year for 10 years, with a grand total of 5,700 housing units by 2026. Raleigh may not sell 2000 homes a month every month, but if they do that for 3 months in 2022, the Mary Ann Plan will knock out that 10-year goal in 3 months!!!
Solutions are what I’ll bring to the Raleigh City Council and who cares who gets the credit.