ATLANTA — The United States is short 6.8 million affordable housing units, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Developers and owners are driven by a mission to meet this critical shortage.
This national problem is fueling the work of architects and designers. Like developers, they, too, have picked up the baton — or the pencil, as the case may be — and applied practices that are custom-tuned to bring much-needed rental housing to market as quickly and efficiently as possible.
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If one quote sums up the commentary heard throughout the InterFace Affordable Housing Southeast conference held in Atlanta on May 7, it would be that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get deals to pencil out.
This metaphorical penciling becomes a real-life, brick-and-mortar problem for the people who design and build affordable housing, which must be delivered within a stringent framework of rules. Buildings must meet specific requirements to receive affordable-housing funding from local, state and federal sources.
For example, a property funded by the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program must meet several standards, such as a minimum square footage requirement for units. LIHTC properties must also include various features that achieve energy-efficiency and support people with disabilities. They also are required to provide certain amenities, such as playgrounds or laundry facilities. Each requirement is detailed in a Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP). For other city or county grants, design and construction requirements are spelled out in request for proposals (RFPs). There are many rules, and they vary by state.
Conference panelists delved into the increasingly sophisticated palette of problem-solving skills within their respective disciplines. Affordable housing architects and builders perform a balancing act. They develop plans that not only check the boxes required by developers, local building codes and state agencies but also produce affordable housing communities with enough creative flair that they stand out among market competitors and appeal to a unique demographic.
What makes these renters unique? Furniture for one. Many residents of affordable housing live in multi-generational home environments, said Mona Hodge, a partner with Nashville, Tennessee-based Smith Gee Studio. Many families are likely to own larger, more bulky pieces of furniture, thus they need bigger unit sizes than those in conventional multifamily design.
“Some of the QAPs and the CNI (Choice Neighborhoods Initiative) grants are now requiring the unit sizes to grow,” said Hodge. “They’re asking us to include furniture in the unit plans so they can see that we’ve designed a clearance around all pieces of furniture. People in affordable housing tend to have large pieces of furniture that have been in their family for years.”
Hodge explained that it would be difficult for a two-bedroom floorplan, typically around 1,000 square feet, to accommodate large, old-fashioned furnishings, and some civic stakeholders have taken note of this trend and have started requiring larger apartments.
Building Housing That’s Equal for All
Accessibility is an exacting requirement in affordable housing design. According to Mark English, founder and president of E&A Team, a Tuscaloosa, Alabama-based accessibility consultancy, failure to meet regulations has disastrous consequences.
“If you’re out of compliance on ADA, 504 or Fair Housing, [the state] can recapture your tax credits.”
English was referring to the Americans with Disabilities Act, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Fair Housing Act, three separate but overlapping pieces of law that ensure housing is usable by people with disabilities. English urged developers to work with an accessibility consultant early in the development process, a practice that is now mandated by some states.
Modular Construction Savings
It’s well known that to keep rents affordable for tenants, developers need a tight construction budget. There are many ways to approach cost-control, but one popular method in recent years has been the use of modular construction, which is widely recognized for being less costly than traditional construction. Does modular live up to this reputation? Yes and no, said panelist Kelly Williams, vice president of business development with Atlanta-based Impact Housing Group.
“There’s a conception in the industry that modular construction is 30 percent cheaper, and it’s not,” said Williams. “Your vertical construction costs are going to be pretty much the same compared with market-rate construction. But you will see a reduced timeframe, about 30 to 50 percent faster. In this heavy interest rate environment with construction loans, that’s going to be a financial advantage.
“The other advantage is that you’ll see faster occupancy,” continued Williams, “so you’ll get those rents coming in quicker. Your pro forma is going to perform much better. There’s also a predictability. Anywhere from 50 to 70 percent of your cost for your project is going to be under a firm, fixed contract. We’re buying all those materials upfront. You’re not going to see cost escalations; you’re not going to see 20 change orders on your project. So, while there’s not a cost difference, there are cost benefits and advantages.”
Collaborate Early and Often
Architects are as adept with soft skills, like collaboration, as they are with concrete and wood. It’s important for the entire development team to communicate early and often when building market-rate apartments, but it’s even more mission-critical with affordable housing.
“It’s essential to have a really healthy kickoff with all stakeholders,” Hodge said. She explained that during development, it’s not uncommon for developers to seek extra funding sources, which means additional design requirements can continually enter the picture. According to Hodge, everyone, including the property management team, needs to be involved right from the start. She said typical discussions might focus on walkability or access to amenities.
“Before we even start the design process, we have really thorough conversations about topics such as whether the developer sees the property as a long-term hold, which means they might prioritize low maintenance. Or if the neighborhood has a lot of nearby amenities, maybe we focus more on unit design. We also talk to the property manager about the type of spaces they’ll need access to on a daily basis.”
Hodge said that design needs can differ depending on the type of owner. Housing authority clients, for example, might be more prone to eschew the latest tech, like digital access control, in favor of getting people housed as quickly as possible, which might mean relying on a simple and fast install of a mechanical lock and key. Whereas a private owner might have a smaller staff and desire a more automated property with fancier bells and whistles.
“Completing these conversations and making these decisions shortens up the design time, and the shorter the design time, the quicker we can get that permit out, and the sooner we can get people in the building,” Hodge said.
Hodge also commented on the high-wire balancing act inherent in mixed-income communities, where architects have to design a property that will appeal to a tech-savvy, market-rate renter while still being affordable enough to someone in an income-restricted unit.
“In mixed-income projects, we’re trying to marry deeply affordable with workforce with market rate. What’s the expectation? If we want to subsidize some of our affordable with our market rate, then we need to evaluate the costs of technology like programmable thermostats or an automated locking system. We have to attract those market-rate tenants without spending so much on design that the ‘affordable’ becomes unaffordable.”
Dallas-based Humphreys & Partners Architects developed its “big house” concept in 1998. It was, and is, a standardized design system used in conventional multifamily. The firm did something similar with affordable housing with its e-TAINABLE model, which is billed as an easy-to-build solution that meets affordable housing regulatory requirements.
McDaniel Wyatt, vice president of business development with Humphreys & Partners, said that even though the design is intended to be an easily repeatable template to control costs and achieve economies of scale, there is still room for creativity, which is just as essential in affordable housing to help properties stand out.
“We did our first e-TAINABLE project in the Florida Panhandle,” Wyatt said, “and we toured a lot of garden-style, Class B properties that were coming out of the ground that this property has to compete with. So, even though it was a prototype, we changed the design on the front end so it could be competitive. For example, ours offered better kitchen layouts than the property’s competitors. We did this while making sure we weren’t creating something bespoke that would drive up the cost and construction time. So, the unit size grew, but when it opens in 2026, it will hopefully set the market.”