CASITA COALITION’S INAUGURAL POLICY CONVENING
Building the Middle Together: Moments from our first national middle housing convening
Photobook
Program
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Creating Scale through Statewide Zoning Reform
State-level reform enables greater local and industry innovation, catalyzing a remarkable impact on scale. A group of middle housing champions discussed how they achieved state level reform across six regions, from strategy to implementation.
Moderator: Rep. Analise Ortiz, State Representative, Arizona
Speakers: Dan Bertolet, Sightline, Portland and Washington
Nathan Dugan, Shelter WF, Montana
Ryan Fecteau, Office of the Governor of Maine
Denise Pinkston, Casita Coalition, California
Local Innovations: Middle Housing Best Practices
Some cities have leveraged statewide zoning reform and added additional provisions that have incentivized and facilitated the production of middle housing. In states without statewide zoning reform, other cities have led the way in zoning reform. This panel discussed all the various approaches local cities have taken to spur the production of middle housing.
Moderator: Jake Wegmann, University of Texas, Austin
Speakers: Jake Fry, Small Housing British Columbia, Canada
Gary Geiler, City of San Diego,
Carrie Makarewicz, University of Colorado, Denver
Kol Peterson, Accessory Dwellings Strategies
Equity and Affordability: Lowering Costs and Improving Access
As the building of ADUs and middle housing becomes more common, the question of who is benefiting from these zoning and permitting changes remains. While the NYU Furman Center has reported that middle income homeowners of all backgrounds are the primary builders of ADUs in California, additional human capital is needed to support diverse homeowners and to ensure equity. Government and nonprofit leaders discussed how to create the human infrastructure and other resources necessary to ensure that ADUs help to bridge the wealth gap and that the promise of equity is delivered.
Moderator: Rafael Perez, Casita Coalition
Speakers:
Dan Hardcastle, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
Clemente Mojica, Neighborhood Partnerships Housing Services
Sherry Taylor, Durham Community Land Trustees
Elected Official Award Ceremony and Fireside Chat
Moderator: Denise Pinkston, Casita Coalition
Speakers:
Catherine Blakespear, CA State Senate, 38th District
Juan Carrillo, CA State Assemblymember, 39th District
Phil Ting, CA State Assemblymember, 19th District
Bob Wieckowski, Former CA State Senator
Building the Playbook, Winning Messaging and Strategies
Zoning reform is hard. However, lessons have been learned from the states and cities that have been successful in advancing middle housing. While middle housing has many names and forms, it is also often misunderstood. What are the winning messages, political strategies, and sequencing that seems to be working across the country? A distinguished set of changemakers discussed the magic behind crafting a more unified message and strategizing for change.
Moderator: Justin Rushing, inewsource
Speakers:
Sarah Armour-Jones, Housing Narrative Lab
Orphe Divounguy, Zillow
Rodney Harrell, AARP, Housing Lab
Michael Andersen, Sightline
Building a National Movement
A discussion from key national housing leaders on the steps needed to build a national middle housing movement, how best to support each other’s work, and create national alignment and cohesion against seemingly insurmountable barriers and a growing misinformation movement.
Moderator: Noerena Limon, Casita Coalition
Speakers: Laura Arce, UnidosUS
Bryan Greene, National Association of Realtors
Mike Kingsella, UpForGrowth
Charles Lowery, National Housing Conference
Janneke Ratcliffe, Urban Institute
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Creating the Financial Ecosystem
Breaking down the barriers necessary to ensure liquidity and wide availability of financial products for everyday families. In this brainstorming session, discussion leaders and breakout session participants will identify the key barriers lenders face in creating and utilizing existing financial products for ADUs and other middle housing types. From construction risk, lack of scale, to moving beyond portfolio lending, this discussion focused on the necessary next steps to ensure a lending ecosystem accessible to homeowners across all income brackets.
Discussion Leader: Susan Brown, CoreSGB
Speakers: Marisa Calderon, National Community Reinvestment Coalition
Community Development Fund
Julee Felsman, Guaranteed Rate, Oregon
Dottie Sheppick, Specialty Mortgage Product Solutions
Jennifer Palmer, Napa County
Middle Housing as a Pathway to Homeownership
No housing product is more underproduced in today’s market than entry-level housing for homeownership. Recently ADUS, hailed as the new starter home, are routinely sold as small condominium projects in Oregon, Washington, Texas, and elsewhere. As middle housing and ADU production begin to scale in certain markets, the concept of encouraging these developments as lot spits or condominium conversions is explored as a promising approach to providing entry-level housing. At the same time, policy challenges remain, including: construction liability, insurance issues, and complexities of shared ownership models. Discussion leader, panelists and breakout participants explored barriers holding back the next frontier for middle housing: more affordable homes for sale.
Discussion Leader: Adam Briones, California Community Builders
Speakers:
Julie Alexander, Austin, Texas–ADU Condo Attorney
Carol Ornelas, Visionary Home Builders
Rafael Perez, Casita Coalition
Eli Spevak, Orange Splot LLC
Building the Middle Housing Workforce and Ecosystem
This session focused on how to catalyze the workforce necessary to build infill housing and explore how to build upon efforts to support BIPOC housing developers and support the emerging industry of ADU and infill housing professionals:designers, lenders, brokers, and builders alike. This breakout session focused on the necessity of industry innovations and promising practices to ensure a robust middle housing ecosystem.
Discussion Leader: Muhammad Alameldin, UC Berkeley Terner Center
Speakers:
Rammy Cortez, Urban Infill
Virginia Flores, Grow America
Alejandro Martinez, Coalition for Responsible Community Development
Timothy Pawlak, Casita Coalition
Reaching Homeowners of Color Through Strategic Partnerships
This session explored the necessary partnerships and technical assistance that must occur through community-based organizations in order to ensure that communities of color can create generational wealth through infill development. From leveraging technical assistance in navigating zoning and city permitting and accessing financial products to teaching households best practices on becoming landlords, this discussion brainstormed next steps for nonprofits and community-based organizations to successfully implement this work.
Discussion Leader: Roberto Barragan, California Community Economic Development Association
Speakers:
Scott Johnson, Napa Sonoma ADU Center
Renee Martinez Stone, West Denver Renaissance Collaborative
Silky Misra, National Urban League
Katherine Peoples, HPP Cares
Press
Featured
Casita Coalition Presents Middle Housing Champion Awards to Legislators
Casita California recognized three trailblazing legislators during the 2023 Build the Middle National Housing Convening. Presented by Casita’s founder and Board President Denise Pinkston and California Senator Catherine Blakespear, the awards honored Senator Bob Wieckowski, Assemblymember Phil Ting, and Assemblymember Juan Carrillo for their innovative work in ADU and middle housing legislation. The incredible success of California’s ADU revolution and our first steps forward leveraging this success into attainable homeownership opportunities and broader middle housing reform, is due to the state law reforms and budget funds achieved by these dedicated legislative champions. Casita Coalition is proud to have worked alongside them on this journey.
Featured Speakers
Featured
Middle Housing Resource Reading List
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Evaluating CA's ADU Reforms: Preliminary Evidence and Lessons for State Governments
Death to Single-Family Zoning...and New Life to the Missing Middle
Discovering and Developing Missing Middle Housing
Making Room: Housing for a Changing America
Housing Choices Guidebook: A Visual Guide to Compact Housing Types in Northwest Oregon
The Infill Design Toolkit: Medium-Density Residential Development
Small Multifamily Homes and Wealth Building: 2-4 Unit Housing Market Brief May 2022
Expanding ADU Development & Occupancy: Solutions for Removing Local Barriers to ADU Construction
Menu of Ideas: Incentives to Invest in the Development of Affordable ADUs
From Our Convening Sponsors
As initial supporters of the Casita Coalition's National Convening, Wells Fargo is honored to stand with this coalition, comprised of passionate leaders working to tackle the housing crisis. By embracing innovative housing solutions like ADUs and middle housing forms, we're taking meaningful steps towards revitalizing housing options in our communities. Together with the Casita Coalition and all the dedicated leaders at this convening, we are committed to making a positive impact, creating a more diverse housing landscape, and ensuring access to affordable, sustainable homes for everyone.”
-Julie Tomanpos, Associate Vice President of Philanthropy & Community Impact Public Affairs, Wells Fargo & Company
“Inspired by Meta’s mission to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together, the Meta Housing Initiative aims to work with community and elected leaders, organizers, and businesses to advance innovative housing solutions that will result in homes for all. We are proud to call Casita Coalition a partner in advancing innovative solutions that help address the affordability crisis.”
– Ryan Patterson Director of Strategic Initiatives at Meta
“At Zillow, we're proud to partner with Casita Coalition to unite experts to tackle the housing supply challenge. Our research shows we are millions of homes short of meeting housing needs. Meaningful action is needed."
– Dr. Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow