Stuart Emmons

Our housing crisis is a perfect storm. The pandemic exacerbated an already growing challenge. Other small cities have gone before us: their workers have to live elsewhere, homeless populations have increased, young families can’t afford a home in their hometown.

Astoria is at a tipping point: we can become a city whose residents are mostly wealthy retirees and remote workers working in close-by large cities; or, we can choose to remain a city where people of all incomes and backgrounds can afford to live. Our roots are as a working-class town, let’s work to keep what makes Astoria a wonderful place to live.

Our challenge is across the housing spectrum. A concurrence of factors that impact housing affordability is taking place right now. From lower-cost rental apartments to higher-cost for-sale houses, we are seeing alarming trends.

Some of the factors: We have lost many existing low-cost housing rental apartments due to lack of upkeep, conversions and much higher rents due to a lack of supply. Short-term rentals are taking many housing units off the market. People are buying second homes in Astoria. Quality of life decisions by out-of-town retired people, or people who can work remotely, who can afford higher house prices, are attracting people to live in Astoria. Salaries from local jobs are not keeping pace with housing prices.

We can do something about this trend before it’s too late. But we need to act quickly. We need to build several hundred units of housing, affordable — 30% of income — to working-class Astorians in the next several years. We need to look at ways to curb short-term rentals. We need to encourage more higher-paying working-class jobs. The good news: we are a small city. Unlike the larger cities near us, our challenges are within reach of visible positive solutions if we work together now.

One good thing about the Heritage Square project is that it helped get a much-needed community conversation going about housing. I was the architect on Heritage Square, and have been a longtime advocate for affordable housing.

Some participated more than others in the Heritage Square process. Social media became one of the primary places for discourse, with much being constructive dialogue. Unfortunately, some comments devolved into unconstructive and even hurtful words.

Like every affordable housing project I’ve been involved with, there was opposition. That’s normal. Some people had valid well-thought-out points, and I really appreciated the feedback. The public plaza. Parking. Astoria Sunday Market. Sadly, for our community, a small group of people, primarily over 65 years old, housing secure, financially secure, took to social media and tore into the project, spreading misinformation and exposing a lack of compassion, with the intent to kill the project.

Now, we see the end to a rare opportunity to build dozens of affordable apartments that would have been available for Astoria residents who are housing challenged. We can continue to point fingers at our fellow community members, and continue to get little done, or, we can learn from this project and point our collective fingers at our housing challenge. And make real progress.

Working on affordable housing is hard. On almost every housing project I’ve worked on, there are a handful of people who insult anyone associated with the project, and come up with many reasons why an affordable housing project will be disastrous in a particular location. Almost any location.

And then there’s the other side, the human side, that keeps me positive and focused. I visit projects I have worked on sometimes, and talk with some of the residents. One woman gave me a tearful hug. Another mother and daughter who had been housing challenged had turned around their lives due to a project I was the architect for. Housing changed everything for the better.

During the Heritage Square design process, many 20, 30 and 40-year-olds in Astoria came up to me to tell me about their housing challenges and thanked me for working on affordable housing. They are our future. I encourage them to get louder next time.

We are at a fork in the road. We can become a city where most housing is out of reach for people who grew up here. A city of wealthy retirees and wealthy people who work remotely. Or, we can become a city where almost everyone can afford to live here.

Let’s work together. Let’s bring our community together with purpose, clarity and a positive mission to help keep Astoria a town we can all be proud to call home.