When people ask why more affordable housing isn’t being built on Kansas City’s East Side, the answers usually focus on financing, interest rates or a lack of developers willing to invest. Those are real challenges. But there’s another obstacle most people never see because it’s underground.
I saw this reality long before I ran for office, and when I became the 3rd District at-large City Council member, I knew we couldn’t talk about urban core affordable housing without first dealing with the land itself.
Kansas City has roughly 17,000 vacant lots. Nearly a quarter of them are in the 3rd District alone. Some are patches of grass. Others are overgrown, filled with trash, or they may have encampments on them. Some fall victim to illegal dumping. To the casual observer, they look ready for new homes. But in reality, many of these parcels are contaminated with toxic materials left behind decades ago…