During a noontime news conference in Briarcliff Manor today, an activist coalition known as Welcome Home Westchester released its first white paper exploring Westchester”™s need for housing that serves various demographic groups, which also underscored the financial rewards that flow from housing development.
The white paper is titled “The Economic Benefits of Building the Housing We Need,” and reviews data from national economic models, academic research and local studies.
Welcome Home Westchester is a campaign affiliated with community and developmental stakeholders including the Building and Realty Institute of Westchester and the Mid-Hudson Region, the Westchester County Association and Nonprofit Westchester.
The white paper describes how building housing that is sufficient to meet the needs of each project’s respective community brings with it short-term jobs, long-term jobs, an increase in revenue for local businesses and increased property tax revenues. Whether the municipality is a city, town or village, housing is an investment that goes a long way toward boosting local economies, according to the report.
Among those who were scheduled to attend the Briarcliff Manor event were: Ron Abad, CEO and executive director of Community Housing Innovations; Frank Ferrara, a trustee of the Village of Port Chester; Crystal Hawkins Syska, board president of the Hudson Gateway Association of Realtors; and Alex Roithmayr, senior research associate for the Building & Realty Institute.
According to the white paper, the construction of 100 units of multifamily housing generates an average of 161 jobs and $11.7 million into the local economy in the first year. Those same 100 units of housing also support an average of 44 jobs and generate $2.6 million in economic activity each year once the project is complete.
From the spending on infrastructure that”™s needed to support housing development, the paper sees an economic multiplier effect for communities that is the same or greater than the benefits flowing from construction of streets and highways in an area.
The white paper noted that Westchester”™s housing shortage, especially with respect to affordable housing, “is the natural result of land use and zoning decisions made over decades that have created cumbersome and costly barriers to producing more housing in Westchester”™s cities, towns, and villages.”
