Why is one unit of subsidized housing $400,000 in Huntsville?

In today’s episode, Cathy summarizes what she learned at a recent meeting on Mill Creek, middle-income/workforce housing, and subsidized housing in Huntsville. Learn the basics, including stats on Huntsville’s affordability problem and why it matters for everyone who cares about preventing worker shortages, promoting economic growth, and improving quality of life for residents. We also talk about how you can’t make workforce housing more affordable without legalizing dense, naturally affordable housing throughout Huntsville. A solution like enforcing building codes is a good idea, but no substitute for new housing supply. We also define inclusionary zoning and discuss the research showing that it actually decreases overall affordability. Perhaps most interestingly, we discuss how much mixed-income, mixed use, subsidized Choice Neighborhood Initiative projects like Mill Creek cost per unit. And we interrogate the claim that it’s physically impossible to build new homes in Huntsville for less than $400,000 per unit. We would like to understand why Huntsville is trying to solve an affordability problem by building fewer, more expensive homes when what we need is more, cheaper homes.