Mayor candidate Larry Grohn said he has a plan to boost affordable housing in Chattanooga.
He said it would be centralized under a group that is currently involved in affordable housing. He declined to name the group.
Councilman Grohn said a task force will be appointed on the issue.
His campaign listed this plan for affordable housing:
Executive Summary: The state of affordable housing in Chattanooga is dire. More and more families are falling behind on their rent and watching as housing expenses consume greater percentages of household budgets. In just four years, Andy Berke has made a bad situation even worse by promoting policies that lead to rising rents, gentrification, and increased housing instability for Chattanooga’s most vulnerable communities.
Larry Grohn will bring a focus on creating affordable neighborhoods where everyday Chattanoogans can live, work, and play by targeting housing incentives in communities of need, developing a team-work approach across all sectors of the market towards meeting housing goals, and increasing credit among disadvantaged and minority populations.
The Problem: Andy Berke has no plan for affordable housing and his lack of care shows. While Chattanooga lacks approximately 6,000 units of affordable housing, the Berke Administration is busy giving tax breaks to powerful developers to build housing developments with “affordable” rents going as high as $850 for a 355-square-foot studio.
To make matters even worse, Berke’s efforts towards increasing the supply of affordable rentals through a developer incentive program has produced little, if any results. Our fellow citizens are paying the price for Andy’s recklessness. Too many households are cost-burdened, and in some inner-city neighborhoods the median Black family pays more than half of their income to rent. This leads to increased housing instability - a situation which can cause children to experience developmental delays and behavioral problems.
A Better Way - Creating Affordable Communities: Larry Grohn understands that the city will not succeed unless more and more communities are affordable to everyday Chattanoogans.
Instead of offering a patchwork of one-size-fits-all solutions, we will implement strategies particular to individual neighborhoods and that account for all aspects of living including access to transportation, senior and handicapped accessibility, employment centers, public health, recreation, and schools.
In order to help the market meet the incredible demand for affordable housing, Larry Grohn will use use every tool at his disposal to ensure that Chattanoogans have access to affordable, quality housing that fits every need, and because Larry believes in developing a team-work approach to solving problems, he will appoint an Affordable Housing Task Force representing all sectors of the housing market and beyond.
The Task Force will produce an Affordable Housing Plan. The plan will have several parts:
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a set of guidelines and policy recommendations for multiple public, nonprofit, and private entities to pursue in the creation and promotion of affordable housing;
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a set of benchmarks for housing production which will identify affordable housing deficits per neighborhood and set production goals.
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a series of multi-party agreements and commitments from representatives of all sectors of the market towards creating and sustaining affordable communities.
Strategies for Affordability: While the final housing policy will be informed by the findings of the Affordable Housing Task Force, Larry has already identified several strategies he will put forward for consideration as part of his goal for creating affordable communities.
Many of these policies are also recommendations put forward in the RPA’s 2013 Housing Study.6
These include:
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Creating More Homeowners in Urban Chattanooga - Minority and low-income communities have low-rates of homeownership. This contributes to a lack of family wealth that can be leveraged to help future generations succeed. While limited Federal dollars are allocated to increase homeownership in targeted communities, Andy Berke is currently using these dollars to pay for City staff. Under Larry’s leadership, the City will have more productive relationships with local, regional, and national nonprofit housing developers and will open up access to CDBG, ESG, and HOME grant funding to leaders outside of government to do the job.
Chattanooga
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Increase Credit Available to Minority and Low-Income Households & Convene Inner-City Banking Conference - As Mayor, Larry Grohn will work relentlessly to increase both access to credit and the credit-worthiness of all Chattanoogans. Within the first six months, Larry will convene an Inner-City Banking Conference with the top banks and credit unions engaged in the local market to help determine how best to increase credit to low-income and minority households.
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Renegotiating 2015 Housing PILOTs for Better Terms -- As stated previously, many of the PILOT agreements made in 2015 traded tax dollars for outrageously expensive apartments that everyday Chattanooga families cannot afford. As Mayor, Larry Grohn will seek greater amounts of affordability at each of these developments. If better terms cannot be reached, the Mayor will use all legal resources necessary to void the deals before the developments are completed.
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Affordable Housing Trust Fund -- Under the Grohn Administration, the City will pilot an Affordable Housing Trust Fund designed to help the financing of qualifying affordable housing developments. Modeled after trust funds set up in over 770 cities across the country, Chattanooga’s fund for housing will offer supplemental financing to developers willing to meet the demand for affordability in targeted communities.
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Letting Builders Build -- The Grohn Administration will perform a top-to-bottom review of all regulatory processes that developers and builders encounter as they attempt to meet market demand for affordable housing. Using the 2013 RPA Chattanooga Housing Study’s recommendations10, Larry has identified several initiatives he would pursue if elected including: