Keep HOUSING Affordable for East Providence Families
Housing is the number one expense for families across our community, followed by transportation and food. East Providence residents are struggling to keep up with the exploding house costs over the last 10 years and to an even greater extent, the last two years. In 2022, the median home value in East Providence was $359,000 up from $190,000 in 2010.Over that same period, the median household income only increased by $7,091 (from $51,051 to $59,142). That is an 89% increase in housing costs and a 16% increase in household income.
Without a dramatic change in housing affordability East Providence residents will be forced to move to more affordable communities at the expense of new residents moving into the community from the Boston Metro area.
Multiple factors affect housing affordability, but none more than simple supply and demand economics. Despite a modest increase in population of 446 people from 2010 to 2020 East Providence actually decreased its housing stock by 132 units. The greatest tool cities have to regulate housing supply is through zoning and land-use policies. Zoning laws regulate the permitted use of land within a city. Zoning dictates the ways in which the land can be developed and what purposes that land can serve.
East Providence practices exclusionary zoning which places restrictions on the types of homes that can be built in a particular neighborhood. Common examples include minimum lot size requirements, minimum square footage requirements, prohibitions on multi-family homes, and limits on the height of buildings. At face value this isn’t a bad thing, particularly for communities that have numerous opportunities for new development. Think of our 1970’s zoning as a throttle limiter, it keeps development from getting out of control. In East Providence, we’re considered a “substantially developed” community. What this means is that we don’t have much green space left for development. Our level of development has remained largely unchanged since the 1970’s. Our development limiter has worked. The problem with having rules best suited for a time we’re not in is that we don’t have the legal framework in place to modernize our community and accommodate our current housing needs. When development does occur, it’s typically done with exceptions to the zoning rules instead of complete modernization of the rules.
In recognition of our current housing crisis East Providence needs to update its zoning code to accommodate the construction of moderate-density housing in areas of existing residential development. By allowing for the development of multi-unit residences in areas previously zoned for only single family homes, East Providence can ease the crushing economic pressure of a limited housing stock and rapidly growing demand. East Providence does not need to lose more green space in order to accomplish this, it needs its zoning code to place emphasis on redevelopment opportunities. Redevelopment means the adaptive re-use of already developed areas for new housing. For example, dilapidated single family homes, instead of being “flipped” are replaced by small condo or apartment projects; empty commercial buildings are converted to residential use. The more earnest we are in taking advantage of these naturally occurring opportunities to fix what is worn out in the community, while maintaining cohesion in the existing landscape, the better we’ll do keeping existing East Providence residents in their homes and in our community.