The nation’s apartment builders and managers have come up with a series of legislative goals for the year to encourage the development of multifamily housing.

Jim Arbury, vice president of the NMHC/NAA, said that among the groups’ goal was to remind Congress “about the important role apartments play in successful communities — not only to they shelter millions of Americans, they also produce $100 billion in rental revenue and about 700,000 jobs in apartment construction, maintenance, and management.”

Since the “American Dream” has long been defined as a single-family home in the suburbs, the energies of the federal government, Realtor groups and lenders have been devoted to homeownership. Apartment developers have long complained that by focusing on buying houses, these groups have been leaving Americans who prefer to rent on the sidelines.

“Faced with a growing shortage of housing for low-income and even working families, housing is taking on a new urgency for many leaders,” Arbury said.

“Unfortunately, almost all the rhetoric coming out of the administration involves homeownership,” he said.

“Our biggest challenge is to get policymakers to understand that our top housing priority should be expanding the supply of rental housing.”

As the smart growth movement builds steam, many developers are incorporating multifamily projects into their communities, especially in the “new town” projects. In a recent speech in Atlanta, Richard Rosan, president of the Urban Land Institute, explained why:

“People are starting to demand more choices in how and where they live,” he said. “According to a Census Bureau survey, the number of people who said proximity to their jobs was the driving force in choosing where to live rose from 24 percent in the 1990s to 31 percent in 2001.”

Over the next two decades, the number of U.S. households without children is expected to grow by 87 percent, with childless households constituting as much as 70 percent of the total population, he said.

“These shifting demographics suggest an increasing demand for higher-density, mixed-use, pedestrian-friendly developments — not just in central cities, but in outlying areas, where most growth will continue to occur,” Rosan said.

“There is a middle ground between unchecked, haphazard growth and no growth,” Rosan said. “That middle ground is development that offers choices -- choices in the way people live, work, shop, relax, and get from one place to the other.

“The truth is, America needs apartments,” Arbury said. “We need them for every town that wants to accommodate population growth without giving up all its green space and adding to pollution and traffic congestion.”

“We need them for all those hard-working families who need a decent, affordable place to live. We need them to house the 75 million Echo Boomers who are graduating from college and looking for housing. And we need them for the estimated 13 million immigrants who will come to this country in the next 10 years,” he said.

In addition to promoting apartments as a component of a more balanced housing policy, the groups also will tackle reductions in the capital gains tax and the depreciation recapture rate, which it believes will encourage investment in and modernization of apartments.

While it will likely not satisfy consumer organizations that question the motives behind such an effort, the groups will push Congress expected to reconsider a broad-based mold bill that failed to pass last year.

The groups also push for legislation to close the loopholes in the Bankruptcy Code they say foster abuses by tenants.

Other goals:

Published: March 6, 2003

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Al Heavens writes about real estate and home repair and improvement. He is the author of What No One Ever Tells You About Renovating Your Home: Real-Life Advice For Hassle-free, Cost-Effective Remodeling.