Wake County Affordable Housing Plan & Implementation

Developed a long-term Affordable Housing Plan; now supporting implementation and program creation.

Challenge

Wake County is the second-fastest-growing county in America and faces a growing housing crisis. Wake County sought to identify strategies that would help preserve existing affordable housing while also incentivizing the production of new affordable housing. As the level of federal support for affordable housing programs continues to decrease, Wake County needed unique strategies to solve challenges ensuring long-term affordability of housing within the county.

Solution

HR&A reviewed existing affordable housing programs and policies, analyzed demographic and market conditions, performed a housing gap analysis, and conducted a financial feasibility analysis for affordable housing development. As part of the development of the Affordable Housing Plan, HR&A ran an extensive stakeholder engagement process that included a 35-member steering committee of local stakeholders representing different communities in Wake County. The plan provided Wake County an actionable roadmap to guide their affordable housing efforts over the next 20 years.

 

IMPACT

Following the launch of the long-term Affordable Housing Plan, Wake County retained HR&A to support the implementation of the Plan’s recommendations. HR&A’s efforts are concentrated on three primary tasks: the development of a gap financing program to support new multifamily affordable housing projects, including revising the County’s current selection criteria for its existing rental production loan program and supporting County staff in the review of project applications; the assessment of capacity of select sites to accommodate permanent supportive housing development; and the development of a land disposition policy to guide the use and sale of County-owned properties in support of affordable housing, including analyzing legal restrictions and developing feasibility criteria to prioritize parcels suited for direct development of on-site units.

District of Columbia Housing Authority Headquarters

Leveraging DCHA assets to produce new mixed-income housing and administrative facilities.

Challenge

Like many housing agencies across the country, the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) is faced with an inventory of aging/obsolete public housing inventory that is in need of significant capital investment or redevelopment. Additionally, as the agency seeks to address these challenges DCHA seeks to create more balanced mixed-income communities without displacing of existing residents. In an era of decreasing Federal support for public housing, the agency must achieve these goals by leveraging its assets and limited funding to the greatest extent possible.

Solution

Since 2012, HR&A has provided strategic planning assistance, transaction support services, and real estate advisory for key projects throughout DCHA’s portfolio. HR&A is providing transaction support services for the redevelopment/replacement of DCHA’s headquarters into a vibrant, mixed-use project that retains the headquarters on site while adding over 900 units of mixed-income housing in the air-rights above the headquarters space. HR&A prepared solicitation documents, evaluated prospective development partners, aided in the selection of a development partners.

 

IMPACT

HR&A continues to serve as owner’s representative to advance negotiations between the selected development partner and DCHA, and groundbreaking is anticipated in mid- to late-2019.

Creating a Racial Equity Agenda for the United States Conference of Mayors

The United States Conference of Mayors developed a comprehensive understanding of the programs, policies, and projects that are effectively advancing racial equity across the country.

CHALLENGE

Across the country, discriminatory policies and practices have created lasting disparities in social and economic outcomes across races. To work against this harmful legacy, the United States Conference of Mayors, with its strong tradition of leadership on issues of civil rights and social justice, is using its national platform to help mayors and cities understand and implement the policies and practices that can reduce racial inequities in cities.
 
The organization engaged HR&A to survey existing racial equity programs in cities and create a set of recommendations for how it could help member cities proactively make meaningful change in their policies and practices.

Solution

To understand their most pressing challenges, we interviewed mayors and staff from 13 cities. The collective feedback showed that some cities are incorporating racial equity through place-based initiatives, programmatic initiatives, and policy change. Additionally, cities are seeking help from external partners to directly address race in their communities. We learned the importance of mayoral leadership and that clear definitions of equity are needed to translate commitments into practice. Synthesizing our findings, we outlined the ways that the U.S. Conference of Mayors could serve as an important convener for mayors and a source of best practice and technical assistance.
 
Our deepest insight emerged from our conversations with economic development departments. Unlike many social services, these functions are siloed from conversations on racial disparity even though they are charged with decisions that impact the physical, demographic, and economic realities of communities. This insight helped us design a program that would connect these departments with training, resources, and technical assistance to embed equity into daily practice.
 

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Innovation District Roadmap for the University of Georgia

The University of Georgia created a roadmap to focus the development goals, priorities, and feasibility of a future innovation district.

CHALLENGE

The University of Georgia, one of the country’s oldest public universities, is quickly becoming a premiere destination for higher-education. Seeking to further strengthen its position as a one of the top 20 public universities in the country, the university is creating a research campus to host its research and innovation activities. To understand the process and resources needed to create a research campus, the university’s real estate team hired HR&A to evaluate the operational and financial feasibility of such a project.

Solution

HR&A assessed the university’s innovation, technology, and research strengths and weaknesses through stakeholder interviews and a review of innovation districts and research centers at peer universities. Working collaboratively with a real estate task force, HR&A and the university used its extensive understanding of university processes, innovation ecosystems, and implementation strategies to create development guidelines for a financially sustainable innovation district. These guidelines identified strategies to develop through private sector partnerships, grow university research opportunities, and produce a convergent environment unique to the University of Georgia.
 

Impact

HR&A’s recommendations focused the task force’s future development of the district on the development of a convergent innovation center that would include space for productive uses open to for entrepreneurs, community members, and students. The convergent innovation center will be activated and programmed by a variety of university programs and activities that focus on economic development, industry partnerships, and entrepreneurship.

Revenue and Ridership Analysis of Commuter Parking & Transit-Oriented Development

With HR&A’s parking and ridership forecast model, MARTA can confidently evaluate the financial implications of providing free commuter parking and transit-oriented development.

CHALLENGE

$2.8 billion in new transit funding, rapid regional growth, and an unexpected spike in ridership – due to the emergency closure of a major transportation artery – compelled MARTA to evaluate and identify the appropriate level of commuter parking capacity along its rail system. Station parking, which is free for commuters, represents a significant cost to MARTA, and replacement requirements for existing parking reduce the financial feasibility of building transit-oriented developments at stations – which could bring new riders and revenue to the system.

To better understand the appropriate balance between providing enough parking to meet demand and creating new transit-oriented development opportunities at stations, MARTA engaged HR&A to create a flexible modeling tool that allows the agency to evaluate the financial and ridership implications of supporting different levels of parking and transit-oriented development at each station.

 

Solution

HR&A developed a model to forecast the changes in demand for parking through 2040 at five MARTA stations. This model relied on regression analysis to identify the relationship between parking demand and observable conditions, then used regional transit planning growth projections to forecast demand. Working with transportation consultants Fehr & Peers, the team created a flexible, user-friendly evaluation tool from the model, which details the impact of transit-oriented development and parking scenarios on anticipated MARTA revenue and ridership.

 

Impact

HR&A is now working with MARTA to expand the tool to the remaining 18 stations with parking facilities in the rail system. In addition, MARTA anticipates using the tool to support its negotiations with a development partner for the second phase of the Edgewood-Candler Station transit-oriented development project and future transit-oriented projects. The tool will help inform the optimal level of replacement parking required of the developer.

Joint Development Program and Affordable Housing Policy Analysis

By assessing its existing programs, MARTA gained new insight on strategies to improve the effectiveness of its transit-oriented development programs and affordable housing policies.

CHALLENGE

Five years after adopting new guidelines to frame its approach to transit-oriented development, MARTA’s board of directors sought to assess the program’s effectiveness in promoting dense, mixed-use development with a great public realm, and to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the board required a more precise understanding of how the agency’s affordable housing policy affected the viability of joint development deals, and how to attract a larger pool of national developers to its joint development solicitations.

Solution

To understand the baseline performance of MARTA’s programs, HR&A reviewed regional and local development trends and plans, identified the performance and pain points of the agency’s existing joint development, and benchmarked the agency’s TOD and affordable housing programs with peer city agencies. HR&A also analyzed MARTA’s property portfolio for future TOD potential, giving MARTA the ability to prioritize appropriate stations for pre-solicitation market studies, feasibility analyses, and community visioning.
 
HR&A recommended the agency establish an independent contracting and procurement authority for MARTA’s real estate office, which would simplify the solicitation program and enable the real estate office to work at the pace of private development partners. To unlock more creative funding sources for affordable housing and build support community revitalization goals, HR&A recommended the agency strengthen partnerships with regional housing and economic development organizations and local municipal development partners.
 

Impact

MARTA demonstrated that its TOD program performs on par with peer agencies and identified actions to improve effectiveness. MARTA anticipates it will attract a greater pool of national development partners and improve development partnerships and outcomes.

Capacity Building for the National Disaster Resilience Competition

The National Disaster Resilience Competition institutionalized the practice of resilience in cities across the country.

CHALLENGE

To confront increasing physical vulnerability to the effects of climate change and decreasing public funding available for infrastructure and community development, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Rockefeller Foundation partnered to transform resilience building policy and practice through the National Disaster Resilience Competition. In 2014, President Obama allocated $1 billion in HUD funding to competition winners, which were selected from places that suffered presidentially-declared disasters between 2011 and 2013.

Solution

HR&A supported the Rockefeller Foundation’s management of the program, providing technical support for 67 cities, states, and counties as each prepared competition submissions. This work ensured that the projects and programs would respond to a broad array of climate-related risk, and address social, economic and environmental challenges. HR&A also designed and delivered a capacity-building program for participants that provided individual technical support to teams to guide them through proposal development; regional “Resilience Academies” that brought together a network of experts to support teams in assessing risk and developing strategies and projects to address them; and tools and other resources to help interpret HUD guidance.
 

IMPACT

The competition enhanced local, state, and regional resilience techniques by offering resources and encouraging partnerships to amplify potential financial and social benefits activated by federal funds. In 2016, HUD announced the 13 winning cities, states, and counties of the $1 billion competition. Funded projects include state watershed, coastal protection, community flood grant, and public housing resilience pilot programs; and coastal wetland and rural river resilience efforts among other projects.
Following the awards, the Rockefeller Foundation engaged HR&A to incorporate workshop teachings into a permanent resilience curriculum, which was deployed across the world through the Global Resilience Academy.

Land Disposition Strategy & Solicitation and Transaction Support for Mecklenburg County

Mecklenburg County successfully secured a master redevelopment agreement to transform underutilized county-owned sites into vibrant mixed-use development.

CHALLENGE

In 2015, Mecklenburg County owned a set of valuable sites with significant redevelopment potential in Charlotte’s growing Uptown, but lacked a clear path to realizing policy goals on the sites, including the generation of revenue and delivery of open space, affordable housing, and new infrastructure. The County required analytical support and strategic guidance to understand the market and surrounding development climate, and move toward a plan for action around each of the sites.
 

Solution

HR&A led the County through a land disposition strategy planning process, providing recommendations for site disposition sequence and strategies that would attract a strong response from the real estate development community. Core work during this stage included: identifying the highest and best use program for each site, testing program alternatives to understand the impact of incorporating policy priorities included affordable housing and infrastructure improvement within each site, developing a valuation for each site and estimating the associated fiscal impacts to the County, and evaluating options for disposition timing and solicitation processes.
 
The County elected to move forward on disposition for two sites in the Second Ward. HR&A supported the drafting, marketing, and release of a Request for Qualifications and subsequent Request for Proposals for Brooklyn Village and Walton Plaza. Our team ensured that the development community was aware of the opportunity associated with these sites and that solicitation documents clearly conveyed the County’s goals for a public private partnership to deliver a significant new mixed-use program and key public benefits, including open space, affordable housing, and new infrastructure across 16 acres, which will transform this area of Uptown Charlotte.
 

IMPACT

The County’s solicitations received strong responses from local and national developers. HR&A guided the development of criteria for the County’s evaluation of proposals and performed an independent evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of each, including a comparison of the economic proposals. Once the County selected a developer, HR&A supported negotiations of key business terms with the preferred development team, BK Partners, a collaboration between local developer Conformity Corporation and the Peebles Corporation. The County and BK Partners executed a term sheet in August 2017, and the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners approved a master redevelopment agreement between the County and BK Partners in July 2018.

Imagine Clearwater

HR&A developed an action-oriented, community-led master plan to activate a 66-acre waterfront site in downtown Clearwater.

CHALLENGE

While Clearwater Beach has witnessed significant growth in recent years, Clearwater’s downtown and its adjacent waterfront have seen less redevelopment, cultural programming, and recreational activity than similar downtown waterfronts in the Tampa Bay region. Clearwater’s downtown waterfront is a beloved civic asset. Home to Coachman Park and the Main Library, the waterfront is an important community gathering place, hosting cultural events that attract visitors from across the region. Nonetheless, citizens across Clearwater recognize that the waterfront and bluff are underutilized assets, including large surface parking lots and the aging Harborview Center, and view an opportunity to transform the area into a destination for all of Clearwater.

SOLUTION

HR&A, working with Sasaki Associates, Kimley-Horn, and B2 Communications, developed a vision to transform Clearwater’s downtown park into an expanded signature space as a way to rebrand downtown, increase visitation, improve connectivity and accessibility, and catalyze adjacent residential development. This plan included a phased redevelopment strategy for potential catalyst sites, a vision and framework for public and private investment, and an action-oriented implementation plan. Throughout the master planning process, HR&A worked with the City to conduct a comprehensive public engagement strategy that included seven community workshops, with over 700 community members participating. Imagine Clearwater, the actionable master plan was presented to City Council, stakeholders, and the general public in January 2017.

 

RESULTS

Since City Council’s approval of the master plan in early 2017, the City – in partnership with key stakeholders who participated in the master planning process – has moved to make the vision laid out in Imagine Clearwater a reality. In November 2017, Clearwater voters overwhelmingly approved modifications to the City Charter to allow for changes to City-owned parcels along the master plan, a key step in the implementation process. As it continues to seek necessary multijurisdictional approvals, the City is also currently developing a detailed design and engineering scheme for the redevelopment, due to be completed by the mid-late 2020s.

Anacostia Waterfront Initiative

HR&A guided the work of six nationally renowned planning firms to create the Anacostia Waterfront Framework Plan. We also led the planning and implementation work for the Anacostia Waterfront’s newest district: Capitol Riverfront.

On behalf of the District of Columbia’s Office of City Planning, in partnership with city and federal agencies HR&A worked with urban design teams to create a development framework for a ten mile stretch along the Anacostia Waterfront. Our work included analyzing the opportunities and challenges for development, performing economic analyses to demonstrate the viability of the Framework Plan, building consensus for the vision among numerous public agencies, and coordinating substantial public outreach efforts.

The Capitol Riverfront is one of the District of Columbia’s most successful neighborhood transformation efforts in the last decade. This 350-acre neighborhood surrounding the Washington Navy Yard has attracted more than 12 million SF of mixed-use development and more than $3.3 billion in public and private development that is completed or currently under construction. There are currently 4,000 residents in market-rate and affordable housing living in the Capitol Riverfront, a daytime population of 35,000 workers, and new waterfront parks. The Capitol Riverfront BID estimates that 2.6 million people attended events at Nationals Park, the Navy Museum, and the Yards Park during 2012.

 

HR&A was the real estate and public policy advisor for the planning and development of the waterfront district surrounding the Nationals Ballpark, now known as the Capitol Riverfront.

  • Managed an urban design team to create a master plan for the Capitol Riverfront;
  • Prepared a development framework for The Yards, Forest City Washington’s ongoing development at the Southeast Federal Center site, immediately adjacent to the Ballpark;
  • Conducted a feasibility analysis of the development plans and identified the preferred alternative;
  • Supported the District of Columbia in creating a new Tax Increment Finance (TIF) district around the Nationals Ballpark, which provided $1.8 billion in financing for the completion of the Ballpark in 2008, further investment in public infrastructure, and a community benefits fund for neighborhood revitalization; and
  • Managed a developer solicitation process.

 
The Anacostia Waterfront Framework Plan won an AIA Honor Award for Regional and Urban Design in 2005. According to the Washington, D.C. Mayor’s Office, the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative has catalyzed over $8 billion in economic development investment to date. In October 2017, the revitalized southwest waterfront opened to the public as The Wharf – a mixed-use development by Hoffman-Madison Waterfront LLC.