Incentive Planning, Part Two, A Preliminary Decision

My understanding is that the zoning regulations include what they call "incentive planning". In order to get (free enterprise, ie, "for profit") developers to provide specialized housing, which there is a need for, the regs are supposed to help make it attractive to do so. The reason there are shortages of "affordable, elderly and green" housing is that it is NOT (as?) profitable to build. In the long term though, a community can benefit from a greater diversity of housing stock. Young people that grow up here can afford to stay, teachers and service providers don't have to commute from out in the boondocks and older citizens can participate in "village child rearing" etc. A broader range of incomes among the population helps create vibrancy through diversity, but because Jericho is so attractive, profits drive the development of new housing stock and this creates an elitist community..which is NOT healthy.

So, to combat the tendency to build McMansions, which only serve the rich, the regs are supposed to create avenues for profitable building practices which include affordable, elderly and green housing. The density bonus is supposed to allow a builder more profit, if he builds "non-profitable" housing stock. The only way the builder can justify the investment in more intense infrastructure, septic, roads etc, to support the additional non profitable houses, is if he is also allowed to build additional profitable houses. Thus the density bonus.

The reality is that the Development Review Board is comprised of lay people who don't necessarily understand the complexities of creating a diversity of housing stock in the current economic model. The Jericho DRB has interpreted the density bonus to include the incentive housing. So in a nut shell, what they have said is, we'll let you build 25% more houses if you make the additional ones affordable. There is no economic incentive to do this. If my interpretation of the regs is correct, if they are supposed to embrace "Incentive Planning" the DRB has created a short circuit. This Preliminary Decision doesn't respond to the regs in a way that it would be worth it to burden the developer with more intense infrastructure, regulation and pre-development (permitting) costs. In this scenario, if we are only allowed to build the original eight (market rate) units, why would we decrease their value by crowding them with affordable houses? Why would we take on the expensive challenges of regulatory navigation?

My conversations with the Town Planner are to open a dialogue with the people who wrote the regulations so that we can understand their intentions. It's possible that the regs were written to be interpreted the way the DRB is interpreting them, but I don't believe so. It's possible that what they are saying is "if you want to do an all affordable (not for profit) development, we'll let you build a greater (up to 50% more) density" (if we like your project).....but that strategy doesn't apply to us. I firmly believe they have written "Incentive Planning Regs" for the free enterprise developer, which is what we are, but it's possible I'm wrong. In which case, I will recommend doing a simple sub division in which case we can build affordable, elderly and green housing at will, or not, depending on the need to create a viable economically sound development.