Miami can help low-income residents stay in their gentrifying neighborhoods | Opinion
The driving force behind gentrification is the ability of people with more money to displace those with less, either by buying older homes to demolish and replace with larger ones or increasing rents to levels that residents and businesses can’t afford.
Some, including in Miami, would call that progress, and many would say it’s inevitable. However, the pace at which that force is applied to poor neighborhoods depends on factors that are primarily within the hidden control of elected officials. It’s like the butcher secretly having his thumb on the scale and saying the price of meat has gone up because of inflation.
First among those factors is up-zoning. Whether local residents want it or not, for-profit real estate development depends on increasing density — the number of dwelling units allowed per acre and the height allowed for residential and commercial buildings in the targeted area — to absorb the increased cost of land that follows each and every proposed zoning change. Real estate is never, ever “down-zoned” because of the threat of lawsuits.
Second is the inability of working-class residents effectively to fight up-zonings. They have less money to hire consultants and lobbyists and fewer hours to spend at City Hall waiting for their allotted two minutes to speak. Often, because of the varying needs of the community, their neighborhood organizations are conflicted about whether up-zoning will be good or bad.
Third is what one might call “the Inevitable.” Climate change is making high and dry land, where poorer people may be concentrated, prime territory for up-zonings, including mega-developments called “Special Area Plans.” The pandemic spurred thousands of residents from other states to come to Florida. with zero state income tax, adding fuel to Miami’s already simmering affordable housing crisis.
These three factors are driving the pace of gentrification. If we now wish to slow it down, the way to do it is with more homeownership by low-income residents. This will allow some of them to remain in historic neighborhoods.
Homeownership could come in many forms: condos large enough to raise a family in new high-rise apartment buildings; “cluster/courtyard” ground-level communities of a dozen or more dwelling units; funding for Ancillary Dwelling Units (ADUs), also known as “granny flats, behind existing single-family homes.
Homeownership stabilizes communities in ways that rental apartments never can. Developers benefiting from up-zonings can and will find a profitable way to create some percentage of homeownership if elected officials require it and are willing to allocate public funding to subsidize it.
Placing a “no resale for 10 years” requirement on anyone receiving homeownership subsidies can prevent abuse ,while still allowing the family to benefit from the overall neighborhood improvement they help to create. It spurs “generational equity,” the lack of which is causing so much turmoil in our country today.
While some homeowners will always sell, as they have every right to do, the more their neighbors are encouraged and helped to stay, the more they will stay, just like residents in more affluent communities.
Anthony R. Parrish Jr. is vice chair of the Miami Planning Zoning and Appeals Board. The views expressed in this op-ed are his own.
