Project Plan (Working Doc)
Current Project Issues: https://waffle.io/CORaleigh/affordable_rental_tracking
Example Map with 2011 Data: http://cdb.io/1HEOjWC

Community Partners:

• Open Raleigh Summer Intern & Project Manager - Morgan Spencer; morgan.spencer@raleighnc.gov
• City of Raleigh - Housing and Neighborhoods, Valerie Malloy, Dpty Director
• City of Raleigh - Housing and Neighborhoods, Shawn McNamara, Planner

Project Overview: Over the next 20 years, Raleigh's population is expected to double, with the surrounding Triangle area growing rapidly as well. Metro areas around the country have struggled to get sustainable economic development right, and without proper planning, Raleigh may join them. In particular, the city's housing policies may fail to keep up with the rapid development due to a lack of accessible tools tracking changes in the affordable housing inventory. This summer project aims to develop dynamic, fact-based awareness tools to assist city employees and policy makers with decisions regarding affordable housing in Raleigh and Wake County. The proposed solution involves using open data from the city or county to create a methodology for estimating the supply of safe, affordable housing. Questions/Problems include: What is our current supply of safe, affordable housing and where is it located? How is the supply expected to change in the next X months? Can we use permit data to predict the change? How can we create a dynamic tool that doesn't rely on outdated and static census data? Supply Problem: What is our current supply of safe, affordable rental housing? in Raleigh, Wake County, Raleigh-Durham MSA? How is that expected to change in the next X months? “Affordability” is based on the rental prices of houses and rooms, which is a dynamic figure, as compared to average median income in a specific geography Housing studies are often done periodically and are quickly out of date in growing, dynamic cities Proposed Solution: Create a replicable, bottoms-up methodology for estimating a highly reliable figure of safe, affordable rental supply using open data from the city or county within the most granular geographic areas possible (blocks) Using County Property Records, Utility Records, Construction Permit, Crime, and Inspection data

Resources: Waffle Board Harvard Joint Center for Housing studies - check annual report for methodologies on tracking supply/demand (chapter on rent) iMaps (Raleigh/Wake County) for property/parcel addresses and property owner records: http://maps.raleighnc.gov/imaps/ (Arcgis REST service)