Fairfax County Is Test Market for D.C.-Based Housing Center
By Michael Laris
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 28, 2007
For years, Pamela Patenaude commuted from her Tysons Corner home to the headquarters of the Department of Housing and Urban Development to get a far-reaching view of the nation's housing problems.
Now the former assistant secretary for community planning and development can just look outside.
Patenaude was lured from her federal government perch to head a new national center to promote the construction of "workforce housing," buzzwords for the quest to build houses and apartments for middle-class families that are generally priced out of wealthy areas such as Fairfax County.
The private-sector effort is targeting three markets -- Florida, Atlanta and the Washington region -- to find, develop and replicate the best ways to increase the availability of affordable housing. Those ideas, in turn, can be used as models for the rest of the country. In this region, Fairfax and Montgomery counties and the District are the focus of the initiative.
"There's no one place to go to see how they work," said Patenaude, director of the ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing, created as part of the Urban Land Institute, a District-based land-use research group.
The issue of workforce housing can be contentious because of political and philosophical sparring over whether it makes sense to offer government help to people earning what in many parts of the nation would be considered excellent salaries. The target demographic across the country is 60 to 120 percent of the median income. In Fairfax, that means households making $60,191 to $120,382.
The proposals can also spur already-heated debates over development because trying to create more of any kind of housing, even with the noblest of intentions, can anger neighbors concerned about the latest wave of people moving into their neighborhoods.
But the downsides of mass commuting from jobs in Tysons to more affordable housing in Prince William County or Winchester are also great, for both individuals and the environment, advocates say.
"By living most of the last 30 years in Atlanta, I have been acutely aware of the lack of mobility and the problem that presents to workers," said J. Ronald Terwilliger, chairman and chief executive of Trammell Crow Residential, a major builder of apartments and condominiums nationwide. That includes "the physical toll, the emotional toll, the marital toll, obesity."
Terwilliger, who grew up in Arlington, funded the center with a $5 million pledge.
"It's certainly better for society that working people that make [our] lives comfortable be able to live reasonably close to where they work," he said.
The effort, launched this summer, will include endorsing particular development projects as well as pushing for government incentives and streamlined public approval processes. For example, industry experts in Florida affiliated with the new group will help Broward County school officials hire a developer to build housing for teachers.
The goal is to construct 3,500 affordable units in five years across the country, 1,200 in this area.
"We hopefully will be the group that takes the concept of workforce housing and turns it into bricks and mortar," Patenaude said.
Fairfax officials have made it a priority to work toward the same goal.
"We're moving in that direction. This is happening," said Rodney Lusk, a Fairfax planning commissioner who has worked on the issue.
Last week, the Board of Supervisors approved changes to the county's zoning law that require developers of high-rises to designate at least 12 percent of their residences as reduced-price housing. In exchange, the developer gets to build an extra unit for every one set aside.
Before, high-rise developers were exempted from having to designate units for lower-income individuals, which was already required in many other developments.
"We missed out on the last housing boom," Lusk said. "The intent is that, for the next one, we'll have in place a series . . . [of] requirements and regulations that will allow us to get these much-needed workforce units."
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