Because less than half of renters had flood insurance, residents who lived in flooded housing had to find ways to replace personal property and potentially had to find replacement housing. Harvey and the Houston Rental MarketĪpproximately 45% of Houstonians were renters before the storm, and estimates are that approximately 6% of apartments were damaged or destroyed by Harvey. Moreover, reports now indicate that local leaders and developers manipulated flood zone designations and prevented neighborhoods from being designated as flood zones to make it easier and less costly for developers to build homes on flood plains. 2% chance of flooding in any given year, Harvey’s catastrophic flooding reveals the inadequacies of flood maps and flooding predictions. As homes built in a 500-year flood zone have only a. Some Harvey-damaged homes had already suffered flood damage in one of the three 500-year floods that have hit Houston since 2014. Notwithstanding federal regulations that ostensibly govern residential construction in high-risk flood areas, Houston developers were allowed to build homes in flood-prone areas, and many of the Harvey-flooded properties were hastily constructed in high-risk flood zones during Houston’s housing boom. Moreover, damage reports from the flooding reveal that some rental housing, and even some newly constructed owned-occupied housing units, arguably should never have been built. Houston, one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, has few zoning regulations and local leaders have virtually ignored the need to engage in meaningful flood control planning. While the amount of Harvey’s rainfall arguably was unanticipated, little about the flood’s damage to housing is surprising. Reports indicate that approximately one-third of the Houston housing stock was damaged or destroyed by Harvey’s floods. As discussed below, Harvey’s flooding further reduced the supply of affordable housing while simultaneously increasing the demand for single-family housing, particularly short-term rental housing. cities, it had an oversupply of vacant luxury apartments pre-Harvey but a relatively small supply of affordable rental housing. Though Houston was (and remains) relatively affordable compared to most major U.S. Houston remains economically segregated largely because its politically powerful residents thwart any attempt to place affordable housing units in their neighborhoods. Houston and Housing Affordability Before the Stormįor years, Houston has been one of the most economically segregated cities in the country. The Paper ends by briefly presenting the housing issues that local, state, and federal officials must now confront in the aftermath of Harvey’s catastrophic flooding. After discussing the limited stock of affordable housing that existed in Houston before Harvey, the Paper then argues that the flooding, especially in lower- and middle-income residential neighborhoods, is the almost inevitable consequence of lax zoning and pro-developer housing policies. While Harvey’s floods damaged commercial properties and roads also flooded, much of the damage toll in Houston-estimated to be as high as $180 billion-involved Houston’s residential housing which has flooded during a “500-year flood” each year since 2014. This Paper will examine Harvey’s effect on Houston’s housing stock and how the flooding exacerbated housing unaffordability for lower- and middle-income renters and homeowners. During the three-day downpour, Harvey produced the equivalent of the region’s average annual total rainfall, approximately 51 inches of rain. Harvey was the largest storm to hit Texas in over 50 years and, over a 24-hour period, dumped more than two feet of rain in Houston. Harvey, a category 4 tropical storm, was not your average storm. As America’s fourth largest city (with a population of approximately 2.3 million ), any major storm that strikes Houston is potentially catastrophic. ![]() In August 2017, Hurricane Harvey decimated parts of Houston and other coastal Texas cities. Hurricane Harvey and the Houston Housing MarketĪrticle - by A.
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