DHA Developments Update

I'd be interested to hear everyone's reactions to the DHA update to the council last night, particularly the presentation on the downtown developments that starts at 54:00: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5ydipHa9o&t=4157s

I'm not surprised to learn that inflation is putting pressure on construction costs and I have to admit this all makes me pessimistic about whether all (or any of those that haven't yet broken ground) of the projects will be completed, much less completed in the maximalist forms that proposal have put forward. It looks like the developers are well below benchmarks on % of affordable units. The good news is they're hitting the benchmarks in terms of absolute number of units for 30% AMI and 30-60% AMI. The bad news is they're nowhere near close to % and there's a 300 unit deficit for 80% AMI. The politics of this are so tricky that I'm concerned they're not going to be able to find a developer that can profitably redevelop the sites with the number (and percentage) of below market rate units that will be required to pass political muster.

It's hard to not be pretty pessimistic about the whole situation. I think you are correct that inflation is going to delay or downsize a lot of developments. The only reason it might not is because the region is already significantly under developing, so returns are already looking enticing and look better every day from a developer point of view.

I hope that's the case and I definitely think there's a strong enough tailwind for private development that it could weather inflation and the coming rate hikes. But I'm more worried about the publicly financed affordable housing stuff, because there may well be strong enough political pressure around the number of below market rate units that it renders any development impossible--politicians worried they can't sell the development deals to their constituencies while developers can't make the numbers work at the current price structure.

But this is all mostly wild speculation/fears for me! Many of the readers here have way more expertise and insight, so that's why I asked.