A recurring critique of Dallas City Council’s alleged propensity for approving multifamily rezoning applications is that officials are cynically using the housing affordability crisis to justify the construction of upscale projects in the face of neighborhood opposition.
If there’s a shortage of affordable housing, the criticism goes, how is greenlighting a high-end development in Preston Hollow going to help? Well, apparently, there’s data that shows how and why signing off on luxury apartments figures into the simple “more housing stock makes prices go down” truism, whether officials are aware of it or not.
During his keynote address at the Dallas Housing Coalition’s second annual Housing Summit last month, The Pew Charitable Trusts project director for housing policy Alex Horowitz explained why more upscale multifamily can have a positive impact on affordability up and down the rent ladder.
Mobility between classes of rental housing is key to the affordability dynamic. When there’s a shortage of stock, rents go up since there’s more competition for units. According to Horowitz, that means higher-income renters who can’t snag a luxury unit move to middle-income neighborhoods. Middle-income renters, in turn, trade down as well. Low-income renters, however, have to suffer their rent hikes — or end up homeless, if they can’t find someone to move in with.
“Housing works like an escalator, and when that escalator is moving up, people trade up into better options,” he said. “When the escalator is moving down, everybody bunches at the bottom.”…