Friday, May. 23, 2008

Commissioners hear report on affordable housing

A year’s worth of research into affordable housing was smiled upon and accepted Thursday, but the end is nowhere in sight, commissioners decided.

The Johnson County Commission heard from the Affordable Housing Task Force, which presented its Housing Choices Report. The task force was founded a year ago in April by County Chair Annabeth Surbaugh and has been researching affordable housing in the metro area ever since.

The purpose was to provide a comprehensive review of affordable housing needs in Johnson County. The purpose of Thursday’s presentation was to review the findings of the task force.

Commissioner John Segale wanted more steps to be taken before the study was accepted.

“I think this is fine,” Segale said after the presentation. “It’s just not the solution. It’s the beginning of it.”

Other commissioners seemed to agree, accepting the findings as a starting point, but the next step will be for County Manager Mike Press to delegate a staff to improve on the findings and present them to the commission at a later date.

From that point, Surbaugh proposed, the study would be taken to neighboring officials and members of the community for input and general sentiment. When a plan of action is established, it will go before the commission again, perhaps for approval.

Task force co-chairs Gary Anderson and Paul Robben addressed the commission and delivered a PowerPoint presentation on the findings.

The key themes were the current mortgage crisis, public transportation and meeting the demands of Generation Y.

Robben said that the cost of connecting the outer rings of Johnson County and the metro area was becoming high, and that the sub-prime mortgage crisis was threatening financing through all real estate.

He said the crisis was creeping into the commercial development markets, a trend that could spell trouble for housing as a whole because of increased costs of construction.

Robben also said the correlation between transportation and housing was vital to the community.

“The quickest opportunity that most people have is to spend more on housing and less on transportation,” Robben said.

To do so, Robben said, the local officials must focus on making public transit a more reasonable option for the people.

“Is it better for the community for (residents) to spend less money commuting to invest in housing, a place to call their home?” Robben said. “We have to find a way to give them that choice.”

Anderson echoed that sentiment, saying that the amount of money residents have to spend on their housing situations, the better for the community.

Generally, he said, it was found that the more money people spent on transportation, the less money they were able to spend on housing.

He asked the commission to consider the task force’s findings and to accept them as a concept, not necessarily to immediately follow through and support them.

“I realize this is a long-term issue that’s not going to be settled in a couple of years,” Anderson said. “But this is a first baby step that is beneficial.”

A point of contention in the study was a section called “Affordability Facts.” Using numbers from 2006, it took average home sale prices and income required to maintain homes of those prices and determined whether people working occupations such as elementary school teacher, janitor or customer service could afford to live in different areas of Johnson County.

The overwhelming result is that virtually no one in those professions could afford to own a home in most of the towns.

Commissioner Ed Eilert said he was concerned with the accuracy of that portion because he said it didn’t represent the wide range of housing available in Overland Park among others.

“Before we draw too many conclusions, let’s go back to the database like I know we can and find out where and what exists,” Eilert said.

The “what” may not have been as important as the “where.”

Surbaugh and others said that if affordable housing was going to move forward in the county, conjunction with the transit lines must be established.

Submit an ad