Developers and county work to meet affordable housing demand

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — As rents spiral out of control, the need for more affordable housing across the valley is becoming more urgent. The primary culprit, however, for slowing down developers is inflation, which is making it much more expensive to build new affordable housing in a price range that many seniors, veterans, and people on low incomes can afford.

“It’s an interesting time right now,” Jess Molasky, a principal with Ovation Development, said. “We have a lot of increases in costs for construction. Our land costs have really gone up a lot, and financing costs have gone up a lot.”

Molasky was explaining the dilemma for developers as he guided U.S. Representative Steven Horsford on a tour of Ovation’s “Harmony” development, which offers what’s described as luxury independent living for seniors, including utilities, for about $1000 a month. But, Molasky said inflation, higher construction costs, and rising interest rates aren’t the only challenges developers presently have to address a 79-thousand unit shortfall in Clark County.

Molasky says the permit process has grown much longer due to additional layers of government. There are also staffing shortfalls which the county says were caused by the pandemic itself.

“To get these projects approved as the timeline has really expanded,” Molasky said. “So anything to speed along affordable housing specifically will be really effective. It used to be 6 to 12 months, 18 months. Now it's getting close to two years.”

Deputy Clark County manager Kevin Schiller described the affordable housing crunch this way.

“I think it’s the perfect storm. When you look at costs, you look at volume, and you look at the need,” Schiller said.

Schiller said it’s definitely on Clark County’s radar, and steps are being taken to help Molasky and other developers step up the pace in which they’re able to get more affordable housing projects out of the ground.

“We, last month, rolled out our community housing fund, and we're putting about $160-million worth of projects out into the street to address affordable housing,” Schiller said.

He says Clark County is also looking at other ways to encourage the development of affordable housing.

“One of the big pieces we did back in March of 2021 is we came forward with a 50 and 75% reduction on developmental fees to try to incentivize that housing,” Schiller said.

The county has also addressed manpower issues caused by the pandemic, which slowed down the permitting process.

“We’re actually working pretty hard on the recruitment - human resources side to address that,” Schiller said.

After he toured the Harmony grounds, Representative Horsford said he’s also working on the federal level to streamline the building process for affordable housing, including looking at ways to make more federal land available for new projects and extending tax credits to developers.

According to Horsford, “we need increased tax incentives for these projects. Yes, we need more streamlined, permitting, more land dedicated, quite honestly,” he said. “I'm going to be a really strong advocate for any new land that we have as part of the public lands that we have more stringent requirements around dedicating a portion of that for affordable housing.”