Tim Iglesias

Moving Beyond Two-Person-Per-Bedroom: Revitalizing Application of the Federal Fair Housing Act to Private Residential Occupancy Standards

Tim Iglesias — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 23:20:38 PST

Moving Beyond the Two-Person-Per-Bedroom Standard: Revitalizing Application of the Federal Fair Housing Act to Private Residential Occupancy Standards

Tim Iglesias

Abstract

New empirical evidence demonstrates that the common residential occupancy standard of two-persons-per-bedroom substantially limits the housing choices of many thousands of families, especially Latinos, Asians and extended families. The federal Fair Housing Act makes overly restrictive policies illegal, but the enforcement practices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have enabled the two-persons-per-bedroom standard to become de facto law. This article urges HUD to use its regulatory authority to remedy the situation and offers several solutions. And, if HUD fails to act, it encourages private plaintiffs to challenge the two-persons-per-bedroom standard and provides guidance to courts in deciding these cases.

State and Local Regulation of Particular Types of Affordable Housing

Tim Iglesias — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 12:06:11 PST

This chapter will consider state and local regulation affecting the development of several types of affordable housing which are neither traditional single family nor multi-family. Specifically, the chapter discusses statutes, ordinances, regulations and leading case law concerning the siting of manufactured housing, farmworker housing, accessory or secondary units, single room occupancy hotels (SROs), condominium conversion regulation, and emergency shelters and transitional housing, including domestic violence shelters.

Housing Paradigms

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:05:53 PST

This article introduces the housing paradigm perspective, a relatively new field of housing theory and comparative housing studies. The housing paradigm perspective identifies housing paradigms and uses them as tools for understanding and analyzing housing law and policy. Housing paradigms are value-laden organizing principles that shape the whole range of housing issues (viz. financing, production, location, and the use of housing) at all levels of government through an ongoing social dialogue. They primary U.S. housing paradigms are: (1) Housing as an Economic Good, (2) Housing as Home, (3) Housing as a Human Right, (4) Housing as Providing Social Order, and (5) Housing as One Land Use in a Functional System. (In a previous article, Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordability, 42 Wake Forest L. Rev. 511 (2007), the author labeled the paradigms as “housing ethics.”) This article explains that heterogeneity or pluralism among housing paradigms is to be expected because of human housing’s multi-dimensionality. This article analyzes several dimensions of such pluralism, including global variety and local variety as well as both static and dynamic pluralism. Finally, this article explains some of the consequences of housing paradigm pluralism and identifies critical conceptual, methodological and empirical issues in the field.

Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and Public-Private Partnerships for Affordable Housing

Tim Iglesias — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:49:59 PDT

While affordable housing has been produced through a variety of public-private partnerships (PPPs) for many decades, this fact is garnering new and increasing attention by legal and policy analysts. This chapter considers how this new attention may affect the future of America's affordable housing movement through the lens of our pluralist housing ethics: (1) Housing as an Economic Good, (2) Housing as Home, (3) Housing as a Human Right, (4) Housing as Providing Social Order, and (5) Housing as One Land Use in a Functional System. (The housing ethics framework was first explicated in Tim Iglesias, Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordable Housing, 42 Wake Forest L. Rev. 511 (2007).) After defining a housing ethic, this chapter briefly explains our five housing ethics and reflects on our housing ethics pluralism. Then, after analyzing the PPP phenomenon using this framework, the chapter concludes that development of affordable housing through the form of PPPs presents important and even historic opportunities for affordable housing development but also substantial risks. Specifically, the proliferation of affordable housing PPPs could engender increased subsidies, continued experimentation with creative methods of developing affordable housing, improved public perceptions of affordable housing, and, most importantly, a fundamental repositioning of affordable housing in legal and policy debates. However, this phenomenon could also lead to the opposite outcomes.

The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:47:39 PST

The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development covers the most important areas of law applicable to affordable housing development and provides a comprehensive overview of affordable housing laws. Part I covers the regulatory framework of developing affordable housing. It includes chapters on planning requirements and zoning issues, a wide variety of constitutional and statutory provisions promoting affordable housing, and building and housing codes affecting affordable housing.

Part II addresses the provision of affordable housing finance, including local, state, and federal regulation of private, local, state, and federal sources of finance; local government powers; and mixed-finance housing development. Part II surveys critical legal obligations that affect affordable housing after it has been built, including regulatory compliance and enforcement at the state and federal level as well as preservation of subsidized housing issues. It also includes a chapter on federal relocation and replacement law that concerns housing acquired for the purpose of making it affordable.

The book concludes with a valuable appendix, the Affordable Housing Law Resource List, which offers a list of web sites and other citations to (a) general reference works and technical materials regarding affordable housing development and (b) compilations and evaluations of affordable housing strategies.

The Legal Guide to Affordable Housing Development is a practical resource for attorneys representing local governments (municipalities, counties, housing authorities, and redevelopment agencies), housing developers (both for-profit and nonprofit), investors, financial institutions, and populations eligible for housing.

Managing Local Opposition to Affordable Housing: A New Approach to NIMBY

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:40:08 PST

The development of affordable housing and services for low and moderate income households has been plagued by “local opposition” (commonly referred to as the not-in-my-back-yard or “NIMBY” syndrome) for decades. Many affordable housing developers view local opposition is the most important barrier to development after insufficient subsidy. A hardening of racial and economic attitudes and increasing opposition to growth and development of all kinds suggest that local opposition is likely to remain and even get worse. Based upon the experience of two successful multi-year regional projects to confront local opposition in the San Francisco Bay Area, this article proposes a novel approach to local opposition called Managing Local Opposition (“MLO”) that combines proactive planning by the developer with legal strategies, community organizing and public relations strategies.

Housing Impact Assessments: Opening New Doors for State Housing Regulation While Localism Persists

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:36:52 PST

America’s housing crisis is serious, pervasive and chronic. It burdens people of color and low-income households most severely, but is now recognized to hinder millions of moderate-income households and full-time workers in mainstream occupations. Past and current housing policies have not solved our chronic housing crisis. This article seeks to open up states’ housing policy to new possibilities through the application of a regulatory regime that helped turn around America’s environmental policies.

The fundamental problem underlying our housing crisis is the failure of local governments to consistently integrate housing concerns into the full range of land use policies and decisions that actually affect housing. A “Housing Impact Assessment” (HIA) requirement modeled on the well-known Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) first required by the National Environmental Protection Act would address this problem in an effective way. And a HIA requirement would enable states to steer local governments’ exercise of discretion toward the fulfillment of state housing goals while respecting the appropriate autonomy of local governments. The article sets impact assessment strategies into a theoretical context and specifies the elements of a model statute. After considering the potential benefits, costs and risks of this regulatory strategy, the article recommends that each state should adopt an HIA meeting the criteria set out in the article and tailored to its particular situation.

Clarifying the Federal Fair Housing Act's Exemption for Reasonable Occupancy Restrictions

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:27:00 PST

This article argues that a deceptively simple “exemption” to the 1988 Fair Housing Act Amendments (FHAA) for “reasonable” governmental occupancy standards has been misinterpreted by numerous courts, particularly by the Sixth Circuit in Affordable Housing Advocates v. City of Richmond Heights, 209 F.3d 626 (6th Cir. 2000). This misinterpretation undercuts the protection from housing discrimination that the FHAA provides for families, especially families of color. This article sorts through the confusion about the “exemption,” provides a step-by-step analysis for courts’ application of the exemption, and offers two plausible versions of a “reasonable” standard.

Our Pluralist Housing Ethics and the Struggle for Affordability

Tim Iglesias — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:14:55 PDT

Building on recent scholarship, this Article explores the five “housing ethics” that have historically shaped U.S. housing law and policy: (1) housing as an economic good, (2) housing as home, (3) housing as a human right, (4) housing as providing social order, and (5) housing as one land use in a functional system. The “housing ethic” framework brings all of America’s housing law and policy under one conceptual roof. The Article argues that each of these housing ethics is deeply embedded in American housing policy and law, and that none has ever achieved a complete hegemony, i.e., that coexistence and pluralism among the housing ethics is the norm. The Article examines the challenges and opportunities that our housingethic pluralism presents to the affordable housing movement. It identifies the “housing as one land use in a functionalsystem” ethic as the single most promising ethic to advance affordability.