Developer Quit Building Multifamily Market Rate Apartments – Here’s Why
Developer Jon Roberts once built market-rate homes families could afford at light-rail stops in Denver. Attainable, dense housing is one fix to the affordable housing crisis, and Roberts was happy to do his part. He’s shifted his focus to $1 million houses and duplexes — and he’s not thrilled about the reasons why: Building affordable housing is too risky, too slow and too mired in bureaucracy.
“I think it’s a solvable problem. I think it’s a problem we don’t need to be dealing with like we are,” said Jon Roberts, current Chair of the Housing Subcommittee for the Colorado Association of REALTORS®, where he works on the affordable housing crisis.
His fixes: make it easier to build more multi-family housing, increase density, do away with single-family zoning statewide and strip back the regulations that add costs for developers.