Patterns of Placement and Design for Affordable Housing in Durham, North Carolina
Creators: name: Miller, Lisa
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2007

description: The steady rise of housing costs at a higher rate than income inflation is creating problems of housing affordability throughout the United States (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2005). The City and County of Durham, North Carolina is working to encourage entities to address this issue of affordability in several ways through the Housing Element of their recently adopted Durham Comprehensive Plan (2005). This Master's Project was undertaken to work towards one of the strategies proposed in the plan, creating an Affordable Housing Pattern book. This pattern book will guide affordable housing developers in the integration of subsidized units into the surrounding community. This project specifically addresses community-wide affordable housing placement, site level design considerations and the process for determining neighborhood patterns. The community-wide level of affordable housing patterns is important for several reasons. This topic addresses siting to reduce transportation costs and the corresponding increase in affordability. This project begins to identify these "location efficient" areas in Durham using a variety of variables in an Arc GIS analysis. A brief discussion follows to determine the ways in which goals of "location efficiency" and the policy of deconcentrating of subsidized housing in Durham can coexist. Finally, rehabilitation for the provision of affordable housing within existing infrastructure is explored. Since rehabilitation emphasizes development of affordable housing within existing infrastructure, it becomes more important to find ways to fit within the established existing surroundings, some of which have existed for more than a century. Once an appropriate site for an affordable housing development is chosen, the small-scale patterns of site-level dwelling design must be considered. The first concern addressed is creating homes to adapt with households' life stages, allowing families to remain in their communities as they change. The second, in the vein of working within existing infrastructure, is promoting accessory dwelling units as affordable housing options. The final consideration for this section is the design of small, efficient homes that are affordable, yet livable. The pattern determination process set out in this project explains in more detail the process necessary for determining the character of existing surrounding structures of affordable housing infill development and provides the tools for assessments of this nature. This process for pattern determination is intended to be included in the Planning department's final affordable housing pattern book. This section will work to inform affordable housing developers of how to determine existing development patterns and create compatible new construction. An example infill site pattern determination process is provided in this section as well where the neighborhood fabric is assessed according to the process established and the necessary elements to introduce into the design of new construction are determined. The final chapter of the project discusses the process for creating Durham's pattern book in addition to detailing the input that has been gathered thus far in this research. The first portion summarizes the advice obtained from individual interviews and a focus group discussion to inform the pattern book development. The next section discusses the role that the pattern book should take - whether regulatory, incentive-based, or voluntary. The final section sets out a table of contents for the final affordable housing pattern book product that the planning department creates.