eProperty Innovations

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What Kalamazoo (Yes, Kalamazoo) Reveals About the Nation’s Housing Crisis - https://lnkd.in/g3MUyMKp

Removing dilapidated structures on rural lands is sometimes necessary. How to do it is another question. Here is a super-interesting first-person account of what went into removing a rural farmhouse as a "controlled burn" training exercise.https://zurl.co/XOIc

Rural communities confront tough land use decisions, as this story from Michigan reveals. On the one hand, there are large swathes of undeveloped land that can be put to use for solar and wind-farm projects. Those projects make it possible for landowners to keep their properties amidst rising costs, but alter the physical landscape in ways that may impact tourism and the bucolic vistas that attract people to live in the same areas. We recently started a project in west central Illinois. The horizon in one county is dotted with massive wind turbines. Cross the county line and the turbines disappear from view, because the adjacent county is not yet allowing wind farms onto farmland. Pass out of that second county into a third and the turbines reappear. Coming so soon after our visit, this article really hit home in capturing the tough decisions facing local communities and the need to balance competing interests and values and hopefully without tearing communities apart in the process. https://zurl.co/h0oS

We love win-wins, like what Zero Empty Spaces achieves, as described in this story from @NextCity… Using Vacant Commercial Spaces As Affordable Artist Studios Is a Win-Win - https://lnkd.in/ejMFFNBj

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Planning projects can mean heavy lifting for small towns - The River Reporter - https://lnkd.in/gbYfWbqN The headline teases an idea that is not much explored in the article, other than to point out how small towns led by volunteers may struggle to evaluate big, complex projects. Regional planning organizations, county planning departments, and even land banks can provide more local know-how, but capacity constraints and system power imbalances are inevitable. Local communities can become captive to consultants on the one hand and dominated by parochial reactionary impulses on the other. Finding the middle path is both challenge and opportunity. The Biden administration has pushed to reshore manufacturing, expand alternative power generation, and invest in rural community and economic development. That translates to a lot of federal funding and big investment projects, which will stretch local capacity even more.

Meet us in St. Louis? The 2024 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference is October 9-11! eProperty Innovations will be exhibiting and attending this national event, hoping to see you among the 1,000+ elected officials, nonprofits, builders and developers and community leaders working to revitalize neighborhoods and property by attacking vacant property challenges. RVP features excellent presentations, networking events, and exhibits showcasing leading providers of technology, services, and resources for communities tackling these issues. Mobile workshops highlight dynamic projects taking place in and around St. Louis and of course, there is time to take in the entertainment St. Louis has to offer. It should be a great event. We hope to see you there! Register now—early bird pricing ends August 1. https://zurl.co/eFby A limited number of scholarships may also be available. Details can be found on the event page linked here. RVP is hosted by @Center for Community Progress , the nation's foremost nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering community change makers working in community revitalization.

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The US is fixated on speed and socializes residents to expect real results in real time. That may work on a weekly crime serial TV show or with instant oatmeal, but the laws of housing supply and demand take a lot longer to show results. It was disappointing to read how -relatively new housing production laws in CA are failing to deliver real results on affordability "yet." https://zurl.co/nCc2 For decades, pro production strategies have been touted by the real estate industry as the solution to the nation's affordable housing crisis. Simply build more housing and households will see the affordability gap shrink. In other words, if housing is too damn expensive, let us (the housers) build more housing. The laws of supply and demand dictate that with more housing, there is less scarcity and thus less opportunity for housers to charge high rents. (We are not aware of any place that has been successfully demonstrated, though we favor having more housing that is affordable to the households who need it). In California, a series of laws have been put in effect in the last 6-7 years that attempt to prove up the theory. California has incentivized housing production through a variety of strategies and is attaching real penalties for local jurisdictions that don't contribute. The results so far: housing is still too damn expensive. This is not to say toss out the experiments and the tinkering. It is too soon to know how well these policies will work, given the nation went through a pandemic and subsequently interest rate spikes that have made housing production more onerous and more expensive in ways we have not seen historically for decades. The hope is that as rates moderate, costs will, too. Whether pro-supply policies can succeed depends on... demographic trends, in-migration patterns, how much existing housing is lost to climate-change driven disasters, the general disconnect between income and expense, consumer preferences, .... In short, the policy environment is but one factor, but it's a very important one. We applaud California for demonstrating leadership and putting forth a broad range of policies, using a "whole of government" approach. We expect it will result in more housing across a range of incomes and needs and whether it is enough, well, we'll just have to see.