Ithaca Common Council Case Study
Ithaca Common Council Meeting
Ithaca Common Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee voted 4-1 to circulate an incentive zoning for affordable housing ordinance at City Hall Wednesday.
The proposed ordinance provides developers with incentives to build affordable living units.
The incentives include elimination of minimum parking requirements, density bonuses – which allow developers to build one additional floor in height on certain developments – and exemption from site plan review.
Developers can access these incentives by constructing affordable living units on or near a new development site, converting existing off-site market-rate units to affordable units or paying a fee to the city’s affordable housing fund.
“There are a few things we can do to make city living more affordable. The first is that we can build more subsidized housing. The second is incentive zoning, so that we can encourage the private market to build subsidized housing. But the most important thing we can do is increase the supply of housing. …show more content…
“In Collegetown, developers [paying the fee to access incentives] might be better for us than having them build on-site because our need for affordable housing is not as great there,” the mayor said.
Presumably, this fee would enable Ithaca to increase the supply of housing in more needy locales.
Lynn Truame M.A. HPP ’13 – representing the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency – defended the efficacy of the proposed incentives.
“Anything we can do to streamline our process of approval, the developers would like us to do,” Truame said, referring to the exemption from site plan review incentive.
“The site plan review initiative is probably the best one we have,” she
Ithaca Common Council’s Planning and Economic Development Committee voted 4-1 to circulate an incentive zoning for affordable housing ordinance at City Hall Wednesday.
The proposed ordinance provides developers with incentives to build affordable living units.
The incentives include elimination of minimum parking requirements, density bonuses – which allow developers to build one additional floor in height on certain developments – and exemption from site plan review.
Developers can access these incentives by constructing affordable living units on or near a new development site, converting existing off-site market-rate units to affordable units or paying a fee to the city’s affordable housing fund.
“There are a few things we can do to make city living more affordable. The first is that we can build more subsidized housing. The second is incentive zoning, so that we can encourage the private market to build subsidized housing. But the most important thing we can do is increase the supply of housing. …show more content…
“In Collegetown, developers [paying the fee to access incentives] might be better for us than having them build on-site because our need for affordable housing is not as great there,” the mayor said.
Presumably, this fee would enable Ithaca to increase the supply of housing in more needy locales.
Lynn Truame M.A. HPP ’13 – representing the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency – defended the efficacy of the proposed incentives.
“Anything we can do to streamline our process of approval, the developers would like us to do,” Truame said, referring to the exemption from site plan review incentive.
“The site plan review initiative is probably the best one we have,” she