How Local Government Can Advance Housing Affordability

Housing Matters By Alexandra Goldman, column originally appearing in the Taos News.

The Town of Taos’ new elected officials are poised to make an impact on our housing affordability landscape over the next four years and beyond. While local governments cannot solve the housing crisis alone, there are many concrete steps it can take to create more abundant, affordable housing for Taos. 

Prioritize public land for housing 
Many municipalities, including the Town of Taos, own underutilized land which could be allocated for affordable housing development. The price of land is a significant driver of development costs, so donated land can make a huge impact, especially if the land is already connected to infrastructure. If the municipality has resources to provide infrastructure hook ups, so much the better. 

Direct state funds to local housing partners and projects
We are lucky that the state is currently setting aside record amounts of funding for affordable housing. In New Mexico, this funding frequently requires a local government pass-through, meaning the funding cannot be given directly to private entities. By cultivating relationships with state-level funders and by encouraging local development efforts, local governments can play a crucial intermediary role in distributing this much-needed funding.

Advocate for programs that meet our needs
Although State funding is available for housing, it can be difficult for smaller, rural communities to access it. For example, funding might prioritize communities with transit connectivity or walkability. These are fantastic priorities that we should strive for in Taos, but we are rarely going to score as highly as an urban neighborhood on transit. Some funding might require complex and detailed applications or demonstrated previous experience, all of which can be prohibitive for a smaller community trying to get their foot in the door. Local governments can be our advocates at the state level for funding that truly meets our needs. 

Champion pro-housing reforms 
Writing and maintaining land use and development codes are one of the most important things our local government does. Land-use codes play a huge role in enabling the development of affordable housing, and local government has the authority to implement pro-housing reforms. 

Elected officials can also play a key leadership role in rallying community support for sometimes controversial, but crucially needed, pro-housing reforms. Las Cruces recently created an extremely pro-housing land use code (the topic of a future column) and their success in passing the code is largely attributed to the diligent and vocal support of their city council. 

Set aside local revenue streams 
The Town of Taos created an Affordable Housing Trust Fund in 2005. It is currently funded by revenue from the town’s Short Term Rental Ordinance, among other sources. It has several hundred thousand dollars set aside — a fantastic start — but needs to be funded to a greater degree in order to make a real impact. 

Affordable housing trust funds are a useful vehicle for local governments to provide flexible, agile funding tailored to their community’s specific needs. By far, most affordable housing funding comes from state and federal resources, however these resources can come with onerous application and reporting requirements, may be optimized for urban areas instead of smaller rural communities, and may take years to actually deploy. Affordable housing trust funds can help bridge these gaps, and make affordable housing developments or programing actually feasible in a community like Taos. Affordable housing trust funds are not easy, and will require real government effort to fund further, but can be extremely impactful.  

Collaborate with existing efforts
Our community already has an existing ecosystem of builders, developers, and nonprofits working steadily to chip away at the affordability crisis. Supporting these existing efforts — not duplicating them — is the most effective path forward. 

Let’s take a moment to discuss Home Rule. In New Mexico, if a municipality has not officially established its own charter via a vote of its citizens, the local government’s powers are greatly curtailed. The Town of Taos and all municipalities in Taos County do not have such charters, and therefore are not Home Rule municipalities. This means the Town of Taos cannot easily levy taxes on property. So, intriguing suggestions like a second home tax or a vacancy tax are simply not legal in the Town of Taos and cannot be enacted unless it adopts a Home Rule charter. Even then, such measures could be on shaky legal and political ground. 

Congratulations to our new mayor and town council members. Thank you for all you’ve done and will continue to do in service of our wonderful community. There is so much we can do together to increase housing affordability in Taos. Let’s get to work!