"Mill housing" for B'game teachers?

Bad ideas tend to spread here in the Bay Area especially when the time horizon for revealing the flaws is years away.  "Mill housing" was a common approach to subsidizing employees' rents especially back in Massachusetts (my home state) in the 1800's.  Now we have the idea that the B'game School District can and should build subsidized housing for teachers.  A sample of 31% of BSD employees found plenty of interest in subsidized housing.  And why not?  You can find lots of support for subsidized anything when you are using OPM.  That doesn't make it a good idea.  The Daily Journal piece doesn't get to any of the flaws--just the cheerleading:

Workforce housing could be one of Burlingame School District’s next big projects but only if community members show support for financially backing the initiative, school board trustees agreed during a meeting last week.

Three sites were identified as being potentially feasible for housing, the 0.3-acre district office site at 1825 Trousdale Drive, a 2.8-acre lot of land between Burlingame Intermediate School and Franklin Elementary and a 4.5-acre undeveloped hillside above Hoover Elementary.  But after further review, only the first two would be developable, Jennings said, noting that the hillside plot is greatly sloped and has access constraints.  (Ed:  that's an understatement). Despite the substantial lot size differences between the Trousdale and BIS sites, Jennings said both could only welcome a 22-unit project.

At the Trousdale site, Jennings said units would be incorporated into a six-story apartment building with underground parking. Initial estimates show the development could cost the district more than $17.8 million.  Alternatively, about $15 million would be needed to develop 12 townhomes and a two-floor flat stacked apartment building with 10 units at the BIS housing site. That configuration would maximize the land use while adhering to single-family zoning policies in the residential neighborhood.

Funny how endangered the concept of "single-family zoning" has become in such a short time.  You can click through to the whole article if you want to read about the various funding options--none of which are realistic.  Instead, let's ask a few basic questions.  Why isn't the giant subsidized housing project wrapped in black netting on Park Rd. enough to handle the less-tenured teachers?  I thought that was the motivation.  Or we could take the view of this resident (whom I don't know) in a letter to the DJ:

Instead, let’s focus on ensuring district employees are paid enough to live here (if they choose) at market rate. They deserve the autonomy to make their own living choices. Let’s pay them a much better rate and stay out of the housing business.

Esther Kim,  Burlingame

Good idea especially with the Inflation Production Act about to kick in and construction and/or financing costs skyrocketing.  The Fed will make those million-dollar estimates look small soon.  Does the District really want to get into the prevailing wage debate?  Are they remotely capable of managing this without more high-priced consultants on board?  Heck, the election campaign to raise the funding probably costs more than it takes to assist a lot of teachers for a couple of years.  The last time I looked at the data (in 2020) it wasn't clear that staff turnover was much worse than it's been for the prior decade.

Lastly, what new wrinkles would school-subsidized housing add to school administration?  Who are the lucky 22?  If you remove an underperforming teacher, are you also making them homeless?  Who's got the huevos to do that?  Who is doing income verification?  Does a significant other's income count?  What about summer income?  Do we think all teachers sit by the pool all summer?  Is it ever smart to do what EssEff does?  I doubt it.  How about working on student achievement and figuring out where we will put all the new students in town while staying out of the housing business. 

Comments

[Phinancier]

You did a decent job of exposing the problems with the idiotic idea, but you missed the biggest one. Once the teachers' union gets a foothold in the shelter business there is no telling where this will go. Don't underestimate the ability of a novice superintendent (or a compromised superintendent) or a board to eff this up. There's a guy in town who can elaborate on this.

[[email protected]]

Any Teacher, Cop, EMT, etc. that is able to get subsidized housing should be required to use the savings to repay their School Loans.