Elizabeth Milias in her column of Sunday offered an example of how to get needed affordable housing at less cost (“A housing lifeline to build goodwill and boost inventory,” June 6, aspentimes.com).
I served on a city budget task force some years ago, and we reached a similar conclusion, but with bigger dollars to spur relocations. The premise is that there are many affordable-housing owners who would like to sell in order to move to warmer climates, or be nearer to family, or whatever.
But they can’t, because they lack sufficient equity in their price-controlled units to be able to buy a new home elsewhere.
Solution: Offer them a bonus of $200,000 to sell.
Then, together with their modest “controlled” equity in their AH unit, they have enough to afford a new home in whatever location of choice.
Result: We get five new affordable-housing units for the price of one. For $5 million we get 25 new units.
Pretty simple arithmetic, and worth trying, whether with Elizabeth’s numbers or these from earlier consideration.
James DeFrancia
Aspen