Interim committee presents report on affordable housing

Thursday, Jan. 30, 1997 | 5:02 a.m.

Assemblywoman Barbara Buckley, who chaired an interim panel studying housing, said in presenting the requests that the need for such housing has never been greater - but many communities are reluctant to see it built.

"Not only are we dealing with NIMBY here, meaning 'Not In My Back Yard,"' Buckley said. "We're dealing with NANNA, 'Nothing Anywhere, Not Near Anything."'

According to the interim committee's report, Nevada's population has increased 54.4 percent since 1980. Many of those new citizens are either retired or lured by minimum-wage casino jobs.

But the report said home prices are skyrocketing. In Wahsoe County, 75 percent of households could afford a home that cost $60,000 or less, but only 9.5 percent of the homes there sell for below $60,000. In the Las Vegas area, the report estimates more than 25 percent of the population can't afford to buy a medium-priced home.

"Everyone can look within their own family or friends and find someone who needs affordable housing," said Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

To ease the problem, the committee will seek several measures that will be introduced later this session. The measures would create tax credits to encourage casinos to provide affordable housing; let local governments grant bonuses to developers to encourage such housing; and ease zoning restrictions on manufactured homes.

"Manufactured homes are not tin boxes anymore. Developers are trying to build homes that are low-density and look like everyone else's," Buckley said. "But manufactured homes still aren't allowed in Clark County because the home building industry doesn't want the competition."

The committee also asked the Legislature to encourage Congress to allow the sale of public land to government agencies or nonprofit groups at less than the market value to develop affordable housing.

Buckley said she wrote letters to local governments urging them to develop plans for affordable housing with their residents.

"That way, they would avoid placing new housing in overcrowded neighborhoods and they could meet the aesthetic standards of particular communities," Buckley said. "And once they developed a plan, they couldn't arbitrarily deny it because it's affordable housing."