Multifamily Orgs Dispel Apartment Myths

WASHINGTON, DC-Two multifamily housing industry organizations–the National Multi Housing Council (NMHC) and the National Apartment Association (NAA) have produced a booklet to encourage acceptance of multi-housing developments in areas where residents are plagued by the, “not in my backyard” syndrome. Titled, Creating Successful Communities: A New Housing Paradigm, the 14-page guideline offers details designed to diffuse negative myths about apartment communities. NMHC and NAA will distribute the pamphlet at the five-day annual US Conference of Mayors meeting this week in Washington and New York.

“Apartments are uniquely qualified to solve a long list of housing-related problems facing our country–problems like the growing affordable housing crisis, urban decay and suburban sprawl,” NMHC President Douglas M. Bibby says. “We need to get people to understand that if they erect barriers to apartments, they will lose because their housing and economic development problems will remain unsolved.”

Among the negative perceptions the report addresses is the belief that apartments breed higher crime rates and lower property values. Pointing to the results of an Urban Land Institute report, the booklet notes that the difference in average annual appreciation rate for single-family houses near apartments and those that are not near apartments was .07% between 1987 and 1995. As for crime the booklet points out that often when individual apartment units are compared to individual single-family homes, apartment units generate fewer calls for police assistance.