Affordable housing advocates in Evanston may want to take a close look at a new tax imposed this month in the Washington D.C. suburb of Alexandria, Virginia, to support affordable housing programs there.
The City Council in Alexandria last Saturday voted to add a new 1 percent sales tax on restaurant meals and use the funds to build affordable housing.
Alexandria city officials hope to raise $4.75 million a year with the new tax.
Restaurant owners said they support the goal but resent being singled out for the new tax burden.
Alexandria has 155,810 residents. City officials there say it has only 1,749 units of unsubsidized affordable rental housing.
An Illinois Housing Development Authority report says Evanston, with 74,895 residents, has 3,585 units of unsubsidized affordable rental units.
So Evanston has roughly four times the amount of affordable rental housing per capita as Alexandria — although the supply here is still well short of the demand if housing is to meet the government target of consuming no more than 30 percent of any household’s income.
Evanston currently generates about $6.4 million annually from its two percent home-rule sales tax and $3.1 million from its six percent tax on liquor sales.
How much revenue a tax targeted to restaurant meals would generate isn’t immediately clear, although there is precedent for targeting restaurant meals for special local taxation in Illinois.
Advocates of the tax in Alexandria argued that it would to a large extent be paid by out of town visitors to the city, while restaurant owners complained that it would put them at a competitive disadvantage to restaurateurs in neighboring towns.
Affordable housing advocates in Evanston have been distressed by the slow pace of affordable housing production under the city’s inclusionary housing ordinance, which places the burden of producing new affordable units on developers of new multi-family housing projects.
First Come First Served
Is the question affordability or location location location of real estate to accomodate. Seems there is a tradeoff of liquor/restaurant housing revenue opposed to a new development. To site a suitable lot would have been the newly acquired property that is sandwiched between two churches near a school in a quiet neighborhood in the 5th Ward. Tsk Tsk
Easy affordable housing
Cancel restrictions imposed by all the historical districts in Evanston. Problem solved!
The Mansion for affordable or even low income, homeless shelter
Probably those for the Mansion also are big on affordable housing.
Solution convert the mansion to affordable, low or homeless housing
The town already has its
The town already has its share of affordable housing. Focus on the middle class who pay taxes. There is a real need for 300 to 550k homes that dont need gut rehabs and that dont require lead paint abatement.
Figure out where and how to build low rise middle income housing for stable middle class families . IE stakeholders who pay taxes!!!
An up to date housing stock attracts middle class people regardless of ethnic background looking for nice enviroment to raise families.