Jonah, Thanks as always for a clear and compelling post (this week’s also on same topic). Is there a rationale out there for why incentives are skewed towards larger projects? Is it just lobbying, or financials, or impact scale, or....?
If I had to guess it has a lot to do with administrative overhead. Underwriting 10 6-unit projects is much more work than doing a single 60-unit one. I imagine the grant administrators don't have the systems or processes (or manpower) in place to be able to efficiently handle the volume.
So I do have some sympathy for them. But that doesn't mean it's right. We absolutely need to empower the administrators with enough capacity to handle higher volumes of small-scale projects. I just don't know how many smaller developers are raising their hands asking for equal consideration...
Jonah, Thanks as always for a clear and compelling post (this week’s also on same topic). Is there a rationale out there for why incentives are skewed towards larger projects? Is it just lobbying, or financials, or impact scale, or....?
If I had to guess it has a lot to do with administrative overhead. Underwriting 10 6-unit projects is much more work than doing a single 60-unit one. I imagine the grant administrators don't have the systems or processes (or manpower) in place to be able to efficiently handle the volume.
So I do have some sympathy for them. But that doesn't mean it's right. We absolutely need to empower the administrators with enough capacity to handle higher volumes of small-scale projects. I just don't know how many smaller developers are raising their hands asking for equal consideration...
That makes sense. Glad your voice is in the mix.