Public input and why Mill Creek needs more units

[Update: We did hear back after this podcast aired.]
In this episode, we discuss the Mill Creek housing development in Huntsville, which will replace Butler Terrace and Johnson Towers with a $400 million mixed-use, mixed-income development on city-owned land. Check out episodes 9 for more on the pitfalls of subsidized housing. And listen to episode 12 to learn about the radon problem at Butler Terrace and more on why cash assistance is generally better than public and/or subsidized housing. 

We can’t emphasize enough that the consensus among researchers from the Furman Center to the Greater London Authority to the National Bureau of Economic Research to the White House Council of Economic Advisors is that average housing prices rise when demand grows faster than supply. And that Navy Yard and Seattle after a building boom and San Francisco during the pandemic all show that prices fall when supply exceeds demand. So it’s not great that whereas Mill Creek in 2019 was supposed to include 1500 units of housing, today the plan calls for 750. 

And the fact is that people are people and if they can’t raise prices they’re going to cut services, including health and safety. So it may be a portent of things to come that we reached out to Urban Strategies and Urban Design Associates about how to offer public input on the plan, and have yet to hear back.