Housing GSO: HRA Greensboro Affordable Housing Plan

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SUMMARY

NOTES | Community Engagement Meetings

May 29, 2019 Municipal Focus Group

Attendees from: Police Department, Planning, NDD, IT, Parks and Rec, Guilford County Planning, Human Relations, and Libraries

Existing Affordable Housing Challenges o No starter homes, or starter apartments – new teacher is going to live in Reidsville and commute, because they can’t afford to live in Greensboro o Greensboro doesn’t have diverse housing stock – we have subdivisions, but not infill, mixed-use, interesting housing to get new residents – we know there is demand for interesting things o Lack of transportation o Overreliance on code enforcement and compliance o Not enough options for middle income households o Access to high speed internet: present in affluent neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods don’t have as many choices or any. Affordable housing should have affordable internet access o Need to improve physical connections between parks and our neighborhoods, Mayor signed on to initiative to promote that everyone should be able to walk to a park in 10 minutes o Need to allow ADUs o Need for housing for immigrants, specifically refugees – needs to be safe and affordable – refugees rely on service providers for safe housing o Community readiness piece: programmatic elements need to be in place – communities need to be prepared to receive new residents who are at the margins o Ability to preserve existing stock is important – people couldn’t rebuild today, so preservation is key o Education around homeownership: paperwork needs to be in place for homeownership – educate people to understand process and alleviate issues • Opportunity Crescent: This is huge swath of city – how do you break into manageable bites? How do we focus on certain areas without hurting feelings of others? o East Greensboro developed later than other parts of the city, it was County land that got annexed, so roads don’t have connections, high traffic volume or density, so then there’s no retail in these neighborhoods, no cross-town connectors with buses, also lack of sidewalk network. o Children don’t want parents’ houses, so houses are getting snapped up as rentals near research park in E Greensboro o Crescent is in transition – even “wealthy” neighborhood are mainly older people, retirees on fixed income. o Tornadoes and hurricane – tore through 1/5 of crescent on E side o Rehab taking place in Opportunity Crescent is not targeted. We could do better job of marketing rehab properties as starter homes • Bellemeade: Would have been good contender for mixed-income project, but it’s not. It’s right in center city, super well connected, but has no affordable units. This would have been good mixed-income infill site. o Development on west side of ballpark – currently affordable 4-6 unit -plexes, converted Victorian homes – worry this could become too cool and displace people o Downtown could be better mixed income opportunity – we have deficit of housing in downtown, could absorb 300 units/year – we have need for things other than luxury units. Also need to get better at density. • Jobs growing at airport – aviation cluster. No transit to get from E Greensboro to jobs at airport. • Cheesecake Factory in Cone Shopping Center – Council member pushed to have it in E Greensboro, even though market research would say it would have to go to Friendly Center – we knew it would thrive in E Greensboro • 40 W corridor/Gate City Corridor: prime place to bring them East – put retail and restaurants here o Elm St. – people live in E Greensboro, but shop in Alamance, so City loses money, sales tax – we were draining our revenue. We need to develop new shopping opportunities.

HR&A Advisors, Inc.

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