2.4.1.a Existing Conditions Discussion

Housing Stock

While the city’s housing supply is large enough to meet demand, there is a significant disconnect between the supply of housing units and the location, price, and quality of the housing units. The housing stock has been growing and stands at 43,142 units as of January 1, 2008. This includes single-family units, multi-family units and mobile homes. An average of 4172 units has been built each year from 2000 through 2007. The average household size is now 2.61. More than half of Surprise’s housing stock was built after 2000.

Housing Form and Characteristics

The housing stock in the region has been heavily influenced by Spanish, Craftsman, Bungalow, Prairie, and Ranch styles, each adding its own flavor to the local architecture.
 
The guidelines for home building focus on architectural design elements, such as quality, scale, volume, height, materials, visual axes, roof profiles and proportion. While architectural aspects are important, social-cultural context is also an important element of a home. Keeping in mind the architectural aspects as well as the socio-cultural context, the design guidelines encourage high quality design which evokes a sense of place, displays an appropriate scale and intensity, and creates a positive visual identity and image for each community. Following are the most important aspects of individual housing units:

Location

• Site – Visual impact, layout and landscaping.
• Site – Open space.
• Site – Routes and movement.
• Unit – size.
• Unit – Layout.
• Unit – Noise, light, and services.
• Unit – accessibility and visitability.
• Unit – Energy, green, and sustainability.
• Unit – Lifecycle issues.
• Performance in Use

Builders are also encouraged to be cognizant of the changing needs of a person’s life.. A lifecycle house includes fixed accessible features (wider doors and halls, open floor spaces, clear traffic patterns, etc.) and adaptable features such as wall reinforcement for grab bars and removable base cabinets for future knee space.

Housing Condition

Most of the city’s housing stock is less than 10 years old. However as the city of Surprise ages, neighborhoods and homes also continue to age. It is critical to ensure that homes and neighborhoods maintain the quality residents have come to expect. Deterioration is determined by homes in need of paint, new roofs, landscaping in disrepair, and building code violations. Today Surprise prides itself in its quality neighborhoods and consistent oversight will be required to maintain these neighborhoods long-term. As the older communities such as the Original Town Site area and the residential neighborhoods in Section 10 ages, conservation policies are needed to sustain positive neighborhood characteristics after the homes are built.

Value and /or Investment in Housing Development

Housing contributes to the local economy in two ways: through private investment and consumption spending on housing services. Residential investment includes construction of new single-family and multifamily structures, residential 

remodeling, production of manufactured homes, and broker’s fees. Consumption spending on housing services includes the amount of rent paid by tenants and the imputed value of housing services to home owners. Homebuilding generates income and jobs for local residents, as well as revenue for local governments. Home building also imposes costs on local governments that supply education, police and fire protection, and other public services to support the new homes. Therefore the economic benefits of the home building include the effect of the construction activity itself and the impact that occurs when the new home is occupied.

Development:

The majority of the housing development in Surprise is occurring in Special Planning Area (SPA) 1 and SPA 2. At present SPA 2 has a majority of single family homes under construction while SPA 1 shows a mixture of single and multi family developments.

Amenity:

Amenities that a neighborhood or the city can provide  guide  the choices that residents and business leaders make in selecting where they want to live and work. These services and perceptions are often what define a region both internally and externally and are critically important to neighborhood revitalization efforts. Examples of the amenities that influence the quality of life include environmental aesthetics, performing and visual arts, cultural and educational events, music, sports, parks, museums, gardens, and other leisure activities.

Supply:

The city of Surprise’s housing mix is deficient in higher-end executive housing. Surprise has not been able to attract developers to build higher-end housing. Providing the full range of housing is critical for the city’s economic development effort.

Income:

Since 1990 the median household income for Surprise residents has more than doubled rising to nearly $60,190 per household in 2006. This income is almost 7.5 percent higher than Maricopa County median household income of $52,521. Roughly 43.3 per cent of households earned between $50,000 and $100,000 in 2006. The largest proportion of Surprise households (24.6 per cent) earned between $50,000 and $75,000 in 2006.

Cost/Affordability

The city of Surprise is recognized for its affordability. First time homebuyers have been able to purchase quality homes in master planned neighborhoods. Monitoring housing affordability as the city matures will be important. The key is to ensure the widest range of housing to meet the needs of a growing city.

Household tenure and composition:

As of January 1 2008, there are 43,142 housing units in Surprise. Out of that 83.3 per cent of the housing units are owner occupied and 16.7 per cent of the housing units are renter occupied. 17 per cent of the housing units are vacant. 67 per cent of the households are married couple families while 10 per cent are other family households. Single person households represent 19 per cent of the total households. There are about seven per cent elderly households in the city according to the 2006 census.

Stability

The linkage between household stability and residential mobility underlie patterns of population change in the city. Research in the past has shown considerable flux in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Owners in older neighborhoods are more likely to change living arrangements than to move. Mobility exceeds household instability in areas where non-families are disproportionately represented; instability in household status exceeds mobility where families dominate. Whether the stability and mobility*  patterns have changed has not been accurately documented for the city of Surprise.

 

Lifecycle stage has a lot to do with the household stability and mobility of households. The concept of lifecycle is particularly difficult to measure. The sociological concept identifies a number of phases: pre-marriage, married, pre-child, child-bearing, child-rearing, and post child. The concept of lifecycle housing provides residents with the option of staying in Surprise after they have outgrown the traditional single family home. As a family matures, its members have different housing needs. The children of Surprise residents should have affordable rental or ownership opportunities available to them when they are ready to leave home. Older residents should be able to find low maintenance and/or specially designed housing when the single family home becomes too much for them. Such “lifecycle” housing conditions promote stability within the city.

* Mobility status refers to the movers and stayers, whereas stability refers to household status

Target populations

It is the city’s goal to ensure that the community offers a mix of housing choices for a variety of family types and sizes.

People with disabilities

The aging population, as well as people with disabilities, creates an increasing need for housing that is accessible for occupants as well as visitors. The Census Bureau reports that the United States population 65 years and older is expected to double within 25 years. Accessibility can be improved with the concept of visitability and even more so with universal design. Universal design incorporates features that make homes adaptable to persons who require barrier-free access without negatively impacting curb appeal or value. Many universal design features make a home more convenient and mitigate common household safety hazards.

Elderly

In recent years several age-restricted neighborhoods have been developed in the city of Surprise. The city has supported these developments as a way of meeting another segment of the housing market.

Homeless

Although the causes and factors associated with homelessness are complex, there are consistent, identifiable contributing factors for both individuals and families in urban and rural communities in Surprise. This includes poverty, domestic violence, substance abuse, health, and general mental health issues any one of which can and do exacerbate the downward spiral to homelessness. Strategies focusing on housing and housing supportive services are necessary to prevent and end homelessness, and to re-establish homeless persons within a community.

Housing Resources

As federal resources for affordable and supportive housing shrink, the remaining federal resources such as the Community Development Block Grant, the HOME investment partnerships program, Housing Choice Vouchers, Low-Income Housing Tax Credits, and USDA rural housing programs become critical and need to be protected. Regional and local governments are increasingly dependent on resources such as housing trust funds and housing bonds to support affordable housing development.

Jobs/Housing balance

Jobs/housing balance is a measure of the harmony between employment and dwelling units in a specific area. A low jobs/housing ratio (below 1) indicates a housing rich community while a high jobs/housing ratio (above 1) indicates an employment center. In a balanced community most residents work relatively close to home, at least in theory. Even though many residents would still commute out of the area by choice or necessity, research indicates that in areas where jobs and housing are in balance, people on average do in fact commute shorter distances and spend less time in their cars, reducing transportation related environmental impacts and providing an improved quality of life. Surprise does not appear to be in balance, with an overall jobs/housing ratio of 0.37.

Market Forces

No plan is complete if it fails to consider the external forces that support or constrain success. Owner-occupied homes constitute the nation’s and the city’s largest form of privately held capital. Therefore national and regional economic conditions have a strong impact on the homeownership rate. Market interest rates have had an important role in the affordability of homeownership as evident in the early 2000s. Counteracting the positive effect of affordable credit were the substantial increases in home prices in some regions. The housing boom in turn led to predatory lending practices and the Federal Bureau of Investigation reported a sharp increase in mortgage fraud during 2004. After years of stellar growth, residential housing, and housing finance markedly slowed in 2007. Regular reports on significant increases in mortgage foreclosures, especially among borrowers who financed with sub-prime mortgages were prevalent in 2007. These widespread foreclosures have repercussions not only for borrowers and lenders but also for neighborhoods, credit availability, and even financial markets.

Strategies

Providing safe, decent housing that is not overcrowded and will not overburden a household financially is critical for the well-being of individuals, families, neighborhoods, and the community as a whole.

The housing element emphasizes strategies that collectively address the availability of, affordability of, condition, and access to housing by the general population as well as special needs groups. Strategies include:

• Adequate supply of land for housing.
• Preservation of existing housing and neighborhoods.
• Improvement of housing opportunities for special needs groups.
• Provision of affordable housing.
• Awareness of market forces.

Future Needs

The housing element plans and provides for safe, affordable housing which meets the needs of the communities that comprise the region. These communities are committed to accomplishing all they reasonably can to ensure an ample mixture of available housing and to address the special housing needs of the elderly, people with physical and emotional disabilities, the homeless, and those requiring group and foster care. The local governments, in partnership with the private sector, will work toward the provision of assisted housing for persons and families of low and moderate income within the region.

The future need for housing is determined primarily by the forecasted growth in households in a community. Each new household, created by a child moving out of a parent’s home or by a family moving to a community for employment creates the need for a housing unit. The anticipated housing needed for new households is then adjusted to account for an ideal level of vacancy needed to promote housing choice, moderate cost increase, avoid the concentration of lower income households, and to provide for replacement housing.

Arizona Revised Statutes requires that the Housing Element contain a “statement of the community’s goals, quantified objectives, and policies relative to the maintenance, improvement and development of housing.” This section contains the city’s goals and policies to implement the city’s housing program. Goals and objectives were developed in direct response to the observed needs for the Surprise area based on housing need assessments conducted during preparation of the Housing Element.