The City of Richardson has finished a housing needs assessment and housing gap analysis. The first of at least two City Council meetings devoted to reviewing the study was held October 27, 2025.
The meeting discussed strategies for affordable housing and missing middle housing in Richardson. Zoning changes would be required to build housing on land currently zoned commercial use. Other strategies included Housing Finance Corporations, Public Facility Corporations, Opportunity Zones, Community Land Trusts, Community Development Block Grants, and more, all of which offer different variations on tax breaks or other financial incentives for builders, owners, or the City itself. Using city-owned parcels for small, pilot projects is another option. The council debated the desired balance between market forces and subsidized housing, the availability of mixed-income and senior-friendly housing, and the importance of not concentrating poverty by integrating affordable housing into existing developments.
In short, there are plenty of options, but the City Council did little to agree on their priorities, which is needed to do deeper dives on the pros and cons of their preferred options. And that brings us to a sticking point. This City Council doesn't seem to be on the same page very often. For example, recently the council discussed developing a score sheet for evaluating applicants for boards and commissions. But in the discussion they learned that even if they all agreed on what makes a perfect candidate for a particular board or commission, that doesn't mean the council would pick them. Council member Jennifer Justice said she wouldn't want to see seven lawyers on a board or commission. In the end they pared back their goal to just having a broad list of features they'll look for in candidates without trying to score each candidate on those features. I don't expect that it'll be different for housing. There probably won't be a consensus on housing needs or solutions.
So, instead of analysing the potential strategies offered by the consultant, let me highlight some of the opinions of individual council members to better see just where this process might end up (and whom to blame when my favorite approaches aren't chosen ;-).
Mayor Pro Tem Ken Hutchenrider: "When I speak to people out in the community, they're saying, we want to support people who are, you know, gainfully employed, who need assistance... You know, teachers and firefighters, police. It's not your traditional low income, ie, you know, below poverty level."
It doesn't sound like Hutchenrider will champion housing for low income people in Richardson. Maybe Hutchenrider should talk to more people, starting with the people council member Dan Barrios talks to. Later in the meeting Barrios had something to say about what people in the community are saying.
Council member Jennifer Justice: "You can go on our city's website and we have fleet jobs posted. We have water system operator jobs that are posted. We have trash collector, driver, loaders that are posted, who all fall below that 50% line [of area median income] that we talked about [defining "low income"]. I think that, from my perspective, I would want to figure out strategies that also allow them to live in Richardson."
Also: "Whatever strategy we come up with, it has to be a strategy that's spread across the city, and it's not concentrated in any way."
Justice recognizes that even employees of the City of Richardson might be classified as Low Income or even Very Low Income (if they are the sole provider for a family of four). They might still need assistance if they want to live in Richardson. She's not choosing a solution, but whatever the city council chooses, she doesn't want it to concentrate very low income Richardson residents in particular neighborhoods. I agree with this and so did the consultant, who said, "I'd recommend any project that you would support be mixed income."
Council member Curtis Dorian: "The direction of moving forward with duplexes, fourplexes, bungalows, I think is something that's integrateable with our current footprint. I think a lot of the revitalization, refurbishing, redevelopment, or even new development, potentially has opportunity for investors coming in and, let's say an apartment complex or a mixed-use complex, 10% of that could potentially be geared toward middle income or affordable housing, which could consist of anything from a studio apartment a one bedroom, potentially integrating it in with all cultures and all society. Because it's going to be very difficult to come in and go, Hey, I'm going to purchase that 12 acres over there, and I'm going to turn that entire development into low income housing."
So Dorian is in favor of developments being built for mixed-income tenants. The consultant cautioned, "One thing we didn't recommend is for any tax-increment-financed residential development require a certain number of the units to be reserved for affordable housing units, not recommending that... Let's find ways to use carrots to continue to have Richardson to be a diverse, dynamic community, but not stifle any redevelopment or development through sticks." Let's see if Dorian sticks with his sticks, so to speak. I worry that if you don't have sticks, then the carrots won't be incentive enough to entice developers to build mixed-income housing.
Council member Arefin expressed his preference for using tax breaks that help affordability for the homeowner, not necessarily profitability for the investors, to increase the supply of housing. He said, "Very mindful that we are trying to help the people, not the investor. I would love to help the investor. I don't have problem with that if the people really get the benefit first. So any tax money should be considered."
As for what programs he supports, he said, "I think it's important for me, I mean, I can speak for myself, that I would like to know all the tools available with detailed pros and cons, understand exactly how things go in the past." Waiting to get "detailed pros and cons" for "all the tools available" is all well and good, but it can delay the process more than advance it. With so many options, it can lead to analysis paralysis. Arefin needs to prioritize without perfect information, and direct city staff to do a deeper dive on the most promising tools.
City Manager Don Magner asked for priorities on the income groups the city council wants to target. He said, "My recommendation is going to be to come back and say, what group are we talking about? Are we talking about 80% of AMI which is low income? Are we talking about 50% which is very low income? Are we talking about 100 to 120% which generally tends to be thought of as maybe workforce housing, because we'll need that guidance as kind of a first layer to go back and look through that lens at all these different programs."
Mayor Amir Omar, as usual, did his homework and came ready with specifics of which tools he recommends the City focus on. He said, "I'm very interested in seeing whether or not there are natural things we can do. By natural, I mean maybe zoning and that sort of thing, not necessarily throwing incentive dollars at it, to lean in on the missing middle elements that we've already identified in Envision Richardson. Could we just make some adjustments in zoning that make that a higher possibility of people going in and doing those things? I'm very interested in leaning in on Opportunity Zones, because my understanding of it is it doesn't necessarily require a ton of extra money by us. And especially if, let's say it's the West Spring Valley one that you've got boxed in there, if we already have a TIF [Tax Increment Financing district] in that area, then there's a way to do that. So I like that as as a potential focus. And then other than that, probably my third item would be piloting one-off scenarios where we can test a few other things, whether that be something like Habitat, or something like taking an apartment complex that's already been approved, maybe we've already allowed or given some incentive, and go to them and say, hey, what can we do to make it to where you consider 10% of your units or 15% just so we can start to taste what that looks like at 80% of AMI, or whatever."
Mayor Omar is interested in a few options that are either already in our toolbox (zoning), or don't require City money (Opportunity Zones), or can be used in experimental ways (Habitat).
Council member Joe Corcoran: "A large problem that we've had when doing this is that it's hard for us to gain consensus on an actual target demographic and strategy. And I want to push back a little bit and say, I don't know that broadly speaking, this council is going to be able to come to consensus on a broad 5-to-10 year strategy for targeting 30% of AMI for Richardson, or 70% of AMI."
Corcoran sees using things like Community Land Trusts (CLT), Housing Finance Corporations (HFC), Community Development Block Grants (CDBG), etc., to create "some sort of corporation where the city council, or some combination of the city council and various community members, are a board of directors for that corporation that grant us that complete control, that allow a developer to come in and almost negotiate with us and say, Hey, maybe we'll give a couple units at this AMI, a couple units at higher AMI, and satisfy to a smaller extent, both what, say, council member Barrios and the Mayor Pro Tem want."
Omar and Corcoran may be on to something. Instead of starting with trying to reach consensus on which demographics to target, maybe we should start by choosing broadly applicable tools and get busy setting those tools up. In parallel we can decide which demographic groups to target.
Council member Dan Barrios had several concerns. One is the displacement of low-income residents by redevelopment. He said, "How do we keep people where they're at, without displacing people, when you create incentives to bring people in." I didn't hear anything in the presentation addressing that. I didn't hear Barrios offer anything, either.
Barrios's second concern is providing affordable housing for low-income workers. At the very beginning of the night's discussion, Mayor Pro Tem Hutchenrider said people he talks to in the community aren't concerned with low-income people. Barrios countered, "Absolutely, I think we need to look at that 50% below AMI — employees of the city, whether it's a facilities person who sets up these tables for us every Monday, or grounds workers at the park, or, you know, perhaps even orderlies or the people who do the laundry over at Mayor Pro Tem's hospital. We want these people in our neighborhood. And one of the things Mayor Pro Tem mentioned, you know, he's talked to people, and I have no doubt, but we live on very opposite sides of the city, and I've heard from not just the residents but business owners, is that we do have trouble accessing that workforce. And when I think workforce, I'm not just talking about teachers and firemen, but I'm talking about those people making $17, $18 an hour, working at the local deli. The reality is, some of those people live south of Spring Valley or come from Forest and 75. You know what's bringing them up to Richardson. So we need to have that kind of workforce in our backyard."
Barrios's third concern is Richardson's Home Improvement Incentive Program (HIIP), which Richardson takes great pride in. Barrios is concerned with it: "Perhaps we need to look at things like the home improvement incentives, because what that has seemed to have done is create opportunities for tear down and creating a new build, versus incentivizing to keep the old in place and just rehabbing it." Barrios has a point. Whereas some might see a tear-down and building new as positive for Richardson, someone living in a seventy year old cottage right next to a brand new McMansion might not see it as all positive.
City Manager Don Magner summarized the homework he saw for him and staff, all of which he sees as applying to the city as a whole.
- "Explore either a PFC or HFC framework that would provide the city with maximum flexibility when negotiating mixed-income housing strategies for residents at various levels of AMI."
- "Explore both entitlement and economic development strategies to help make sure that existing Richardson residents, first and foremost, our low-income seniors, can safely age in place."
- "Explore entitlement and economic development strategies to increase missing-middle housing. And that could be both for the type of housing and also could include the affordability element to it as well."
- "Seek this Opportunity Zone designation and advocate to the governor that we receive at least one."
Magner will bring the results of that homework back to city council for their further consideration.
Quotes have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.
"Don't wall out the poor.
Don't favor the fortunate.
One street, many doors."
—h/t ChatGPT
1 comment:
Thank you for this insightful summary.
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