In a new report, Affordable Abundance, authors Daniel Hornung (Urban Institute) and Aaron Shroyer (Brookings Institution) discuss why an “abundance-plus-affordability strategy” is necessary to build and preserve affordable rental housing in a financially viable way.

In Context: Abundance took liberal politics by storm earlier this year with authors Ezra Klein (The New York Times) and Derek Thompson (The Atlantic) arguing that well-intentioned policies slow or block the very construction needed to make housing truly affordable. Hornung and Shroyer build on this idea, emphasizing that for housing, “abundance” alone is insufficient; it must be paired with deliberate affordability measures to ensure that new supply actually meets the needs of low- and moderate-income households.

First, the authors define an “abundance-plus-affordability approach” as:

State and local housing strategies that combine abundance-style reforms with tools that reduce the cost of constructing and operating housing affordable for low- and moderate-income households

Then, they offer four key principles for how state and local policymakers can maximize production and preservation of housing that is affordable for low- and moderate-income households, in a manner that efficiently uses scarce taxpayer resources:

  1. Explicitly promote housing production and preservation with incremental long-term affordability for low- and moderate-income households in a manner that is tailored to local market conditions and potentially with a broader definition than for federal subsidies.
  2. Build or preserve housing that would not happen without the additional support and in a manner that is a cost-effective use of taxpayer dollars.
  3. Make administration and access as straightforward as possible, including for developers and investors that are typically less focused on subsidized affordable housing.
  4. Set up programs so they can build and preserve housing at scale.

Finally, they provide categorical examples of state and local government programs outside of LIHTC used to produce new housing or preserve existing housing with affordability requirements:

  • Preferential permitting and zoning
  • Using public land
  • Providing low-cost debt or equity
  • Exempting or abating property taxes, including to spur commercial-to-residential conversions.