(the following is a speech I gave as part of the Public Speaking Rock Stars course I took earlier this year at CBRE) I find it funny that one of my favorite memories from my college years is about affordable housing. I was at the Jimmy Carter Work Project, in Berea, Kentucky, standing in the kitchen of a nearly finished new Habitat for Humanity house watching Lewis Coffey turn on his kitchen tap for the first time. I was one of 25 volunteers that arrived on a Monday to a concrete slab and we built a house in 5 days.…
While grocery shopping last week I witnessed a person roughly my age helping her mother shop. I couldn’t immediately identify her mother’s ailment or reason for needing help, and little did I know I’d be doing the same thing for my own mother this week following her eye surgery. The “silver tsunami” is rapidly approaching for many of us in the sandwich generation, and I’m only beginning to understand the direct implications. For the first time in world history, there are more people on planet earth age 65 and over than there are children under 5, as discussed in a…
I was happy to see the Star Tribune counterpoint this week pushing back against a piece from earlier in February calling for reduced developer fees in order to make housing more affordable. The for-sale housing construction industry has every right to make this issue its priority, but as this week’s piece pointed out, communities need to pay for public amenities like parks and other things. We like nice stuff. I can accept the argument that part of the social contract in the Twin Cities is we have higher expectations for our public realm and developer fees are higher as a…
The current debates over the Minneapolis 2040 comprehensive plan and inclusionary housing raise some interesting ideas for consideration about the city and Twin Cities metro area overall. First, more housing at all levels of affordability is critical to the future of the city, not for the sake of density itself but rather the city’s ability to remain remotely livable. Second, a well-calibrated inclusionary housing policy is a workable idea but only a tiny piece of the overall housing picture that needs addressing. And third, it’s up to the metro area, not just the city of Minneapolis, to accommodate more affordable…
