Steve Bailey details the troubles of the Fenway Community Development Corporation in maintaining its own goals of affordable housing. It seems that the Susan S. Bailis center on the edge of the South End is trying to convert affordable units to market-rate, because the overestimation of market demand has led to a fiscal shortfall in the project. This, Bailey argues, should give pause to the FCD’s recent obstruction of Northeastern’s attempt to create more student housing in the area.
I’m in agreement with Bailey, though I think there’s a more fundamental reason to be suspicious of the FCD’s battle with Northeastern: while "Homes not Dorms" may be an appealing slogan for those who feel their neighborhood is besieged by students, it ignores the fact that as long as Northeastern has students they will seek to live nearby. Barring a cap on and reduction of admission rolls, the construction of new dorm space is the only way to take market pressure off other housing stock in the area.
This obstructionism is part and parcel with a mentality that sees luxury high-rise construction as bad because average people can’t afford to live there. The way I look at it, the more places well-to-do people have to live, the less likely they’re going to be competing with places I might actually be looking at one day. This is not to say that the market solves everything; it doesn’t. Nor does it mean that affordable housing requirements in new construction are a bad thing. It simply points out that creation of new housing is the thing above all else that’s going to ease the difficulty in the long run of average people to afford their living space.
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