Scottsdale developer eyes great multifamily development equalizer

By Terrance Thornton Twitter: @NVNEWSMAN (June 2020)

In the grand scheme of things, affordable housing — typically envisioned as multifamily layered development including single-family detached and attached dwellings — is a fair and balanced way to describe Phoenix metropolitan housing stock.

However, as Maricopa County continues to rapidly grow local economists see a systemic need for more attainable housing. One Arizona builder — Greenlight Communities — contends its latest project coming online in Scottsdale is the next chapter of affordable, quality housing for the middle class of the Valley of the Sun.

Principal of Greenlight Communities, Rob Lyles, contends if you make less than $65,000 a year you are hard-pressed to find quality dwellings and oftentimes those salary levels belong to community heroes: the first responder.

“Only 18% of the rental population can afford to be in that space and we are building to serve that rental population,” he said pointing to rising rental prices, and existing rental stock in central Phoenix and Scottsdale, in particular, is pricing out the people who make communities whole.

“Only 18% can afford that and yet that is 95% of the multifamily stock in existence today — that is what everyone is building. The major money that pays for that is national investment firms. They want the brochure-quality project and forget who the tenants will be. We have opened up our project to a wide net of people. The average healthcare worker in Phoenix makes $42,000 a year.”

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