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Health & Fitness

When the Housing 'Market' Decides, It is Hard to Abide

What does a community do when a portion of its affordable housing stock is threatened by the market place?

One thing is for sure, Kent can be an expensive place to live. The increasing student population makes it exceptionally so, as the demand for housing, and especially housing within a mile of the university, increases. While this demand, coupled with an excellent school system, keeps property values in Kent high, the downside is that it keeps rent high as well, and often, too high for the condition of the apartments on the market.

The recent sale of and proposed conversion from senior citizen housing to junior and senior student housing is a logical additional step in the move of housing into the private market. Developers are pursuing this kind of development because they believe it is an opportunity to make money, and that is after all, what makes the private sector work. The down side of course is that the “market” is mostly interested in the upside for itself, with the social costs “externalized" to the people losing their accommodations and the community as a whole.

The housing market in Kent works like housing markets in fast growing communities, in that those with less means are continually marginalized to make room for those who can afford the increasing rents. In those communities, government and non-profits need to work hard to develop programs and policies to assure that there is at least a modicum of affordable housing developed along with ”market-rate” housing. While we in Portage County have a long-standing affordable housing problem in general, that has to do with the overall level of poverty, lack of jobs, health and disability and a whole host of other social and economic issues.

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The challenge specific to Kent is that students seek out any housing they can get, at the full range of options. Like everyone else, students are looking for decent, affordable places to live at all price points in the market. Many look for rooms in houses, which leads to a legal and illegal boarding house market that challenges most of our neighborhoods with over-crowding, and especially creating a density of young people that have little regard for the families in whose neighborhood they are living. Others can afford to live in apartment complexes, some of which are older and more affordable, and as we have seen, many are in search of newer and more luxurious accommodations that put a demand on the market for that type of development. In all cases, students are becoming more and more prevalent in all parts of our community, which has both up and downsides. The downside that I heard most about when I sat at the council table is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a good neighbor. This student housing mentality seems to have rubbed off on the developers themselves.

The down side of this upward pressure on the real estate market is that senior citizens, who have had a few places of their own, are increasingly being marginalized themselves. The Silver Oaks situation may not be the last time this happens unless there is some change in either public policy and/or a non-profit organization that is willing to create an affordable place for folks living mostly on social security. Probably the best way to accommodate our senior sector, such as those being displaced at Silver Oaks, is not in a development just for them, but in our neighborhoods in “granny flats” and other accessory apartments. Come to think of it, that would also be a much better way to accommodate students in our town and would have a very low impact on our neighborhoods. This would require a change to our zoning code, but it is the historic urban pattern and is done all over the land in old and new neighborhoods. We are now in the process of re-writing our zoning code, so this is the perfect time to do it.

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For me, it is pure insanity for the city of Kent to allow the private sector to dictate the kind of development that we want in our community. While some of the new developments that are proposed or underway sure look all sparkly on the outside, creating enclaves of one age group will have social and public service impacts that are not being accounted for now or for the future. Understanding these costs requires a level of sophistication and analysis that few low-growth communities such as ours have in our tool kit. Perhaps this is the wake-up call we need. 

And as for “the market” deciding the future of our community, we have to remember that “the market” for housing is about having places for people in our community to live. We need to remember that the market is just an idea that people carry around in their heads, and that if a developer makes a calculation about what “the market will bear,” they also need to consider what the community will tolerate. While we have failed miserably in updating our book of ordinances for the new reality of gas stations as super stores and student housing as mega-complexes, I hope that we are not too late. I for one think that the “housing market,” an abstract, unfeeling and unaccountable beast, needs to be tamed.

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