Behind the Headlines Podcast · WKNO/The Daily Memphian

1613: Affordable housing push looking beyond subsidies to supply need

·32 min·2 clips

Zena says the city is working with the State Fire Marshal on code changes for 3- to 24-unit buildings.

1. Behind the Headlines Podcast 1613 centers on affordable housing, infrastructure, and development in Memphis. 2. Eric Barnes hosts John Zena, the City of Memphis’s new Chief of Development and Infrastructure, and Bill Dries, a Daily Memphian reporter who asks about housing, roads, and TDOT. 3. The episode asks how Memphis can coordinate agencies and regulations to increase housing supply and improve infrastructure without relying only on subsidies. 4. Zena says the new chief-level job sits in the mayor’s office and coordinates planning, housing, community development, economic development, and infrastructure. 5. He says the role is meant to bring cooperation across internal divisions and quasi-city agencies so the city can take a more proactive approach to its built environment. 6. Barnes and Dries press him on the city’s "alphabet soup" of agencies, from building permits and code enforcement to utilities, incentives, and the Downtown Memphis Commission. 7. Zena says the point is to make those fractured responsibilities more formal and more efficient across functions. 8. Dries raises the relationship between private development and public infrastructure, using roads as the example that can make or break a project. 9. Zena says the city often needs public support, including tools like tax increment financing, to make development work. 10. He links that approach to the broader goal of increasing housing supply and maintaining infrastructure standards across Memphis. 11. On affordable housing, Zena divides the public role into four dimensions: regulation, land acquisition and availability, funding and financing, and workforce development. 12. He says nonprofit developers are seeing estimates of $200,000 to $225,000 to build a 3-2, which can exceed the value of homes in many Memphis neighborhoods. 13. Zena says the city cannot "subsidize our way out of this" and instead has to use zoning, subdivision rules, and the comprehensive plan update. 14. He points to Memphis 3.0 and the Unified Development Code as tools for allowing more housing types in more parts of the city. 15. Zena says North and South Memphis have high vacancies, older walkable infrastructure, and underused roads, utilities, and sewer systems that make them important places to invest. 16. He says that appraisal gaps are driven by comparable values and that the issue is a number that policy has to bridge. 17. On cost reductions, he describes efforts to let more rental income come from single-family lots, add three-family and four-family options, and lower building-code costs for small multifamily housing. 18. He says the city has worked with the State Fire Marshal and the General Assembly on code changes, including provisions for 3 to 24 units and sewer-charge relief for some affordable-housing projects. 19. The conversation is practical and policy-heavy, with Barnes and Dries challenging Zena on potholes, state roads, and downtown conditions while he answers in a measured, technical way. 20. Listeners interested in Memphis housing policy, zoning, roads, and city government will get the most out of it, while people wanting light local color may skip it.

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Behind the Headlines Podcast