Developers of affordable housing projects shed light on the process
One of the biggest issues facing any of the candidates elected this November is housing. There are many calls for local governments to invest more in subsidizing the cost to provide units to people whose household incomes are below the area median income.
To educate policymakers throughout the wider area, the Central Virginia Regional Housing Partnership has been holding a speaker series to illustrate the challenges and obstacles from the perspective of the building and development community. Yesterday, on April 15, the guest was William Park, the president of Pinnacle Construction. He went through the many line items that go into a financial calculation about how much it costs to build new housing.
He said at the moment, one of the major factors is rising prices for materials, with some elements costing as high as four times as much as they did a year ago.
“Give you an example, I was just writing a purchase order the other day that I struggled to sign it,” Park said. “OSB 716 that we use many times for sheeting on our walls and our roofs. In an apartment project, we may have 30,000 sheets of OSB. Typically I’m in the $10 range. I signed a PO the other day for $42 a sheet.”
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