Newark City Council weighed multiple strategies to increase the amount of affordable housing options in the city at Monday’s Council meeting.
Newark’s director of planning and development did not endorse any of the strategies presented, instead turning the options over to Council to decide the direction they would like to move in.
The suggestions include regulatory changes incentivizing developers to provide units below market rates and eliminating or reducing minimum parking requirements.
City Council member Corinth Ford said her first priority is not expanding affordable housing options to University of Delaware students.
“I am very interested in providing affordable housing for working people and in attracting professionals and working people and families to our neighborhoods,” Ford said. “I also want to preserve our neighborhoods, frankly.”
The city hosted 15 events including focus groups and public workshops to gather feedback from community members on the issue.
Newark’s director of planning and development Renee Bensley said 50 percent of Delaware’s renters are considered cost burdened, meaning they’re paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing.
Bensley added one way Council could help folks is through zoning changes.
“This means allowing more variations of housing types in traditional single-family zoning districts,” Bensley said. “Missing middle is a term that's often used to show the housing types that are between detached, single-family and mid-rise apartments that have been zoned out of a lot of areas, including parts of Newark.”
The missing middle in Newark includes duplexes, triplexes and townhomes which act as a middle ground between single-family homes and apartment buildings. And cost burdened people are familiar faces in the community, Bensley added.
“They're your nursing assistants, your retail folks, your teachers, your social workers, paramedics, nursing assistants, their assistants,” Bensley listed. “They're members of our community. They're people who work here but don't necessarily have the opportunity to live here based on cost.”
About 52 percent of the land in Newark that is not owned by the university or part of the public right of way is exclusively zoned for single-family detached homes.
“There is a shortage of 2098 affordable units for those with a 0% to 50% [Area Median Income] in the city of Newark,” Bensley said.
And part of that issue is that folks making more money are living in housing at the lowest end of their budget because there is a gap in the housing market between cheaper and more expensive homes.
“What that often means is you have folks who can afford to pay more, who are in units that cost less, and because they're staying in those units, they're not becoming available for people who need them at that income level,” Bensley said.
Other strategies Council heard about also include establishing an affordable housing trust fund and reviving city-funded programs that provide gap financing for buyers.
Ford added in the long term, a tenants rights bill is a must to ensure renters are treated fairly – but that’s not possible with current state protections, which Ford finds flimsy.
