Patching the Fabric of the Neighborhood: The Practical Challenges of Infill Housing Development for CDCs

W07-4: This study describes the potential and limits of infill affordable housing development in the community development context, with the aim of serving as a resource for practitioners in framing and evaluating infill development opportunities. At the policy level, there is a general preference for infill affordable housing development due to the fact that infill not only delivers new housing stock but also is perceived to deliver a multitude of positive social and economic externalities, such as neighborhood revitalization, neighborhood reinvestment, slower suburban expansion, and the re-creation of walkable, transit-oriented communities. Among community development practitioners, however, infill development’s operational challenges, in particular cost and complexity factors, are well known, such that its potential is often limited by a host of contingencies. This study evaluates how internal factors (organizational mission and internal capacity) and external factors (real estate market context, community context, and municipal context) shape the infill development strategies and decisions of community development corporations (CDCs)…