Opinion: Union Station is Denver’s housing hub, but can suburbs benefit from transit-oriented communities?

Union Station has been a transit hub since 1881. It thrived for 70 years with intercity travelers who transferred from heavy rail to street cars to get home.

As I moved from being an advocate to a Union Station board member to city council, I eventually helped ensure The approach could also guarantee long-term affordable units if a companion bill passes that allocates $30 million in new tax credits for building housing priced for families earning less than 60%, 50% or even 30% of the median income. That translates into incomes below $60,000 .

The question of how market-rate housing in transit-oriented communities helps ease the crisis is more complex, but there’s a reason for optimism. There is extensive research on the effect new apartments have on surrounding rents and affordability. Older methods have associated new competition with lower rents only as older housing in the community aged over several decades.

Yet, according to an interim housing needs assessment by the Denver Regional Council of Governments, 60% of new housing or 137,00 dwellings will be needed for working families earning less than 60% of median income by 2040. A $100 break on a $2,500 rent still won’t be affordable for them. We can expand on apartments loosened up through moves by building mixed-income affordable housing as a percentage of any market homes being built on day one.

While generic “density” didn’t scare off poll respondents, it does some opponents. When residents are presented with real-life transit-oriented scenarios during hands-on planning exercises, they embrace the walkable communities it creates. Passing the $30 million tax credit for affordable housing with the TOC bill and demanding that a percentage of newly built units are affordable up front, as seven of the 31 cities that are the subject of the bill already do, would expand outcomes for even more struggling Coloradans.

Source: Loan Digest (loandigest.net)

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