From a builder’s and developer’s point of view, two of the main challenges when it comes to affordable housing are increasing land and infrastructure costs in the Wilmington area, a panelist at the Mayor’s Roundtable on Housing Affordability said Tuesday morning.

“We’re now buying property at fair market prices, spending new, current utility costs, and it’s generating lot prices that builders are going to necessitate having $250,000 to $350,000 houses. That’s where affordable housing is going to start in New Hanover County if something’s not done to subsidize, [if there’s not] municipal involvement in infrastructure in some way,” said Chris Stephens, president of Landmark Organization Inc. and affiliated companies. “That’s what’s going to have to happen." 

Stephens, a builder and developer whose work has included more than 5,000 affordable and entry level homes built and sold primarily in the Wilmington metro market, was one of 13 panelists to participate in the roundtable event Tuesday at The Terraces on Sir Tyler. The group included business, education, health and other community leaders who shared information with an audience of nearly 300 people.

Saffo echoed Stephens’ opinion.

“If we’re real serious about this, and we want to bring some affordable housing and we want the private sector to drive some of that or a lot of it, you have to somehow try to play a partnership role between government and the development community to incentivize” those building projects, the mayor said.

Jonathan Barfield, chairman of the New Hanover County Board of Commissioners, said affordable housing can mean different things to different people. A generally accepted definition is an amount that does not exceed 30 percent of a household’s income.

But Barfield said a recent request that came before the Board of Commissioners highlighted a misconception. Property owners on Blue Clay Road were interested in rezoning land to allow for a development of homes that could be considered affordable, with home prices there expected to be under that $250,000 price mark, Barfield said. Warning the audience Tuesday that he planned to be blunt, he said some of those who expressed opposition to the measure to county officials appeared to believe the term “affordable housing” meant “black people are coming to our community,” Barfield said Tuesday.

“We’ve got to educate people on what affordable housing really means and turn it away from a racial stereotype to the fact that it really goes toward your teacher, toward your police officer, toward your sheriff’s deputy. These folks work for the county and the city, and again, it’s very hard for them to afford housing in our community,” Barfield said.

A lack of affordable housing can also deter economic development efforts, panelists said.

“The truth of the matter is, when a business looks to expand and when a business looks to come in new into the area, they need to know that there is housing affordable to every salary level that they have within that company,” said Katrina Redmon, chief executive officer of the Wilmington Housing Authority. “I think we do a good job on the upper end [of the salary range] but maybe not so much on the lower end. And some of these are good salaries, but still there’s not an affordable home.”

That could have implications for the housing market, and the local economy, overall, panelists said.

“We are dominated by retirement home buying here and ... that’s putting stresses on the service industry, which needs affordable housing, and that’s been our business for some time,” Stephens said, adding that the commercial sector is already feeling the effects. “At some point, it may change the appeal of retirement housing in this area if we’re not able to fix the affordable housing issues in multi-family and single family.”

Also during the event, Paul D’Angelo, planning manager for Choice Neighborhoods in the Southside area for the Wilmington Housing Authority, explained ways other communities in North Carolina have found some success in increasing affordable housing options, including housing bonds, housing trust funds and dedicated property taxes.  

“As an example, the city of Charlotte’s been very successful in passing housing bonds about every other year for about the last 13 years,” D’Angelo said. “Currently, they’re hoping to have three bonds put out the next five years for $15 million, and they’re hoping to build 5,000 affordable units in the city of Charlotte.”

The four-hour roundtable discussion was hosted by the city of Wilmington and the Cape Fear Housing Coalition and sponsored by the Wilmington Regional Association of Realtors, the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association and New Hanover County.