Could Vienna's approach to affordable housing work in California?(theguardian.com)

Could Vienna's approach to affordable housing work in California?

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/apr/30/california-housing-vienna-lessons

2 comments

There's some pretty interesting detail on how this works. Addressing the supply-side instead of demand sounds sensible to me. It sounds so simple, I wonder how they've made it work and others can't. Is it political; is it a case of needing to just be bit heavy handed and somehow force this prpoach through to try it out; or have other location got unique challenges where this approach couldn't work regardless of any push-back being overcome?

>Vienna’s affordable housing system is supported by a 1% tax on all salaries which provides a permanent funding stream for new construction...The housing tax currently generates about $250m annually and the city gets a further $200m in rental income and loan repayments.

>Since the 1990s, most new developments are built by limited-profit housing associations, which benefit from 1% government loans.

>Most of it goes into subsidising construction, whereas in the US it mostly goes to directly subsidising residents through vouchers and housing benefit schemes.

And how they handle NIMBYism:

>the urban planner Kurt Hoftstetter explained that they had held up to 20 meetings in the nearby villages before they began construction. “We did this to inform residents of our plans and ask them how we could make it more acceptable to them. But we did not ask their permission.”

[deleted]2 anni fa