The price of Living where you work
Affordable housing is often over-used, risking its meaning, but in Centre County, the shortage is a reality that’s hard to ignore.
Jonathan Bojan, chair of Central PA United Housing Committee, says the issue involves policy and psychology as much as it does price.
“Housing is always tough,” Bojan says. “It’s just a major expense of life. That hasn’t changed.”
He argues that what has changed are the pressures: since the pandemic, home values and interest rates have risen sharply due to rapid recent appreciation, driven by macroeconomic forces largely beyond local control.
But zoning is not.
Bojan and Central PA United focus on local land-use rules in State College Borough, believing current zoning effectively limits housing quantity and restricts the types of homes that can be built.
“The zoning basically says in this area, you can only have this much housing,” he says. “A lot of people want to live here.”
He cites accessory dwelling units, small backyard homes, cottage courts, and four-unit buildings as ways to expand housing supply without significantly changing neighborhood character. A proposed borough zoning overhaul, he says, could legalize many of those forms and “there’s a very good chance it will get passed this year.”
At the heart of the debate is tension between preservation and inclusion. Many longtime residents moved to Centre County for its small-town feel and want to protect it, an instinct Bojan says he understands.
“The quality of the neighborhood is an important thing,” he says. “A lot of people move here because they like the way the town feels and they don’t want it to change.”
He argues that high standards and limited supply can exclude workers and lower-income residents. Housing is considered affordable at about 30 percent of household income, yet even that benchmark is often unattainable locally.
“We have a lot of people who work here but can’t afford to live here,” Bojan says. “We don’t like that statistic. We want to change it.”
Students complicate housing in university towns, often outbidding workforce residents for units, especially with family support, while some municipalities impose minimum dwelling sizes that effectively block smaller, more affordable homes.
Looking ahead 10 years, Bojan envisions “a much greater supply of housing stock, a much wider variety of housing stock, and a more robust community.” He wants affordable, inclusive, sustainable housing.
He cautions that reform must be collaborative.
“It needs to be a dialogue where we respectfully work together,” he says. “We set very high standards. I think high standards are good. I think we need to set high standards for housing, but then we also need to help people meet them. I don’t mind people setting high standards, but you also have to help people meet them. And if you’re not able to do that, the standards are discriminatory and they need to be changed.” T&G
Lloyd Rogers is the assistant editor of Town&Gown’s sister publication, The Centre County Gazette.
