Affordable Housing With Reduced Commute

July 2001.


Affordable Housing With Reduced Commute
By T.S. Khanna

In the past, General Plans adopted by most jurisdictions did not pay focused attention to minimize the commute needs. The past focus has been on providing more and more facilities for the ever-increasing commute needs due to the inadvertent neglect. In fact, most of the adopted General Plans is a major contributing factor in longer commute needs and greater dependency on private cars.

General Plans and land use plans often discuss jobs/housing balance, affordable housing and reasonable commute without defining and implementing their close relationship in planning. Here, I would like to define jobs/housing balance and affordable housing more precisely. If the definition offered below is legislated and the General Plans are required to follow the legislation, commute needs would be minimized. The solution to our problem would be more curative than symptomatic.

It seems that a house is affordable by a family if (a) the monthly payment of the house or apartment does not exceed 25% of the family’s gross monthly income, (b) cost of commuting to work does not exceed 3% of the gross income, (c) time for commuting does not exceed 30 minutes each way, and (d) distance for commuting does not exceed 15 miles.

To bring about jobs/housing balance, the planning effort must make sure that employment centers and housing subdivisions are approved as package development plans. Each employment center development must be required to include at least 90% of the affordable housing needs of the employment center. Transportation facilities should then be planned and provided to facilitate commute needs at a cost not exceeding 3% of the employees’ respective gross incomes.

The above mentioned approach would not only solve the traffic problems it will also result in reduced air pollution, reduced traffic noise, wasteful use of energy resources, reduced number of traffic accidents, and more available time to be spent with the family rather than wasted in commuting. In a way, long commute forced on our citizens is indirectly damaging the great value system of the society by weakening the family unit resulting in numerous destructive social changes.