New housing numbers are out

Good and not so good for Charlestown

By Will Collette

HousingWorksRI just released its new 2013 Housing Fact Book. This is their ninth annual report on the state of housing in Rhode Island. 

Their research is generally acknowledged to be the most authoritative and their method of presentation makes it pretty easy to compare how Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns are doing at the important job of providing housing for their people.

As most Charlestown residents know, housing costs in town are high and the amount of affordable housing is low. 

The town’s ruling CCA Party has been at war with the state, arguing that Charlestown cannot meet the requirements of state law to have at least 10% of its housing meet state standards as affordable. Town Council Boss Tom Gentz has made it his mission to overturn the state affordable housing law, or at least get Charlestown exempted from it, without success.

The Housing Fact Book dispels some of Charlestown’s ideas about itself. For example, Charlestown is hardly among the highest-priced housing markets in the state. Or for that matter, even in South County.

Charlestown ranks 15^th out of the 40 areas covered in the data. HousingWorksRI added one more market to the existing 39 cities and towns by dividing Providence into the East Side (which ranks as the second most costly place to buy a home, after Block Island) and the rest of Providence.

Four other South County towns have more expensive housing markets than Charlestown. There’s Block Island which is ranked the most expensive in the state, as well as North and South Kingstown, and Narragansett.

Last year, it cost $292,500 to buy a single-family home in Charlestown. That number comes pretty close to the numbers provided by Zillow.com. Even though we had quite a number of million dollar-plus home sales, we had far more properties that went at distress sale prices to bring down the overall average.

That average sale price was down by 5.3% from the year before. Five years ago, at the peak of the housing boom, HousingWorksRI reported the average sale price in Charlestown at $400,000. We’re still down almost 30% from that level.

One of the many things that HousingWorksRI does well is put housing prices in the context of how much you need to have in annual earnings to be able to afford to buy. They make these calculations taking into account the kinds of financing options that are available as well as, of course, average housing prices.

Last year, it took an annual income of $87,038 to be able to afford to buy in Charlestown. This year, that number has dropped to $77,652 a year. That’s a drop of almost 11% which is good news for buyers – and for sellers, too.

But Charlestown wages have been pretty static and still nowhere near the amount needed to buy. According to the Fact Book, the average wage for a Charlestown worker in the private sector was $39,884, up by only $312 or less than 1% from the year before. Even a two-earner household earning that private sector average would just barely make the amount needed to buy in Charlestown.

For Charlestown to reach the state-mandated level where 10% of our housing is deemed affordable, Charlestown needs 279 more affordable units. Building new housing is one way to do that, but only one of several options that include converting properties into affordable duplexes or apartments or adding accessory dwelling units.

"Affordable housing" DOES NOT mean Charlestown needs to build
three-deckers

Whether it’s new construction or substantial retro-fitting, adding more affordable housing units in Charlestown would also give a boost to local jobs. Construction workers and contractors comprise one of the largest job categories among working Charlestown residents and they've been living through some terrible times since the start of the Great Recession.

Charlestown has been generally resistant to any new construction and town rules for adding or converting spaces into accessory dwelling units are so burdensome that none have been built.

As a result, Charlestown ranks close to the bottom on affordability (5th worst) with only 2.8% of Charlestown housing units qualifying as affordable. The only towns that are worse are Richmond, West Greenwich, Scituate and Little Compton.

By contrast, the state’s most expensive town, New Shoreham a.k.a. Block Island, has topped the 10% mark for affordable housing and has complied with the state mandate years in advance. While Charlestown is the 5^th worst in the state, Block Island is the 5^th best.

...But we do have to act!

Except for Richmond at only 1.72%, the rest of South County is leaving Charlestown in the dust. Hopkinton and North Kingstown both have 7.06% of their housing rated as affordable. South Kingstown is now at 5.39%, Westerly 5.32% and Narragansett is at 3.65%.

The picture for Richmond may be about to change pretty dramatically. They will probably get very close to the 10% mandate when the 399-unit Richmond Commons project is built. That’s the project where Copar Quarries was given a lease to mine the land to prep it for construction and holds an option to buy it.

Looking at Charlestown's performance in context, compared to other South County communities and other Rhode Island rural towns, I keep wondering why Charlestown does so poorly. We keep blaming the state law when other, similar Rhode Island communities are doing a far better job at meeting affordable housing goals. 

Download the Fact Book. Read the numbers. Compare town-by-town how Charlestown stacks up. 

Then you can decide whether the complaints by Boss Gentz and the Charlestown Citizens Alliance are justified or whether Charlestown should stop whining and get on with the job of meeting the needs of the people. All the people, not just the CCA Party base.