Kansas City may gut its affordable housing policy under an ordinance being considered by the City Council.
Takeaways
- Kansas City Council will consider an ordinance next week to roll back its landmark affordable housing “set-aside” ordinance by slashing the in-lieu fee from $100,000 per unit to $5,000 per unit.
- Affordable housing advocates say they were shocked to learn about the change, which they believe sets the fee so low that developers would no longer have any reason to comply with the affordable housing standards.
- At the same time, city leaders and advocates both agree that five years after the policy was approved, it could use some tweaking. Some ideas include strengthening enforcement, making it more flexible or finding new funding sources for the housing trust fund.
The proposal would be a major rollback of the city’s affordable housing ordinance, passed in 2021, which requires any developer getting a tax break to “set aside” 20% of housing units at affordable rents.
If a developer doesn’t want to provide those affordable housing units, they have the option of paying an “in lieu” fee to the city’s affordable housing trust fund.
That trust fund, bolstered by a $50 million investment from taxpayers in 2022, has provided funding for more than 2,400 affordable housing units…