In this reflection, you’ll hear from a delegate on lessons learned from the Tokyo Study Trip.
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By Sara Ngan
For over twenty years, I’ve practiced architecture and worked in for-profit real estate development, focusing on multi-family residential projects at various price points. Each had unique, complex, public-private partnerships.
These partnerships often became contentious, took years to negotiate, added costs and scheduled extensions to projects that could not afford to have delays, and caused mixed-income projects to reduce the number of affordable housing units in order to compensate for the added costs and time. These commonplace complications exacerbate the lack of affordable housing available in the tri-state area.
In Tokyo we met with development and public agencies including Urban Renaissance Agency (UR), a public entity that develops, constructs, and manages rental housing; Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG); and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism (MLIT) to better understand how public-private partnerships provide affordable housing efficiently. Unlike the tri-state area, Tokyo has no housing deficiency. In fact, by 2030, there will be a housing surplus as the population is expected to decrease.
My fellow delegates and I were struck by how each organization shared the same story. They typically have sufficient funding to develop projects. Projects are designed by well-known architects like Toyo Ito, Kengo Kuma, and Riken Yamamoto (whose work we saw at Shinonome Canal Court). Developers are incentivized to create more affordable housing. There are clear distinctions between what public entities and private entities provide. Disagreements still occur, but relationships don’t often end up combative as all parties see it as their responsibility to ensure that affordable housing is provided for every income bracket.
Time and time again, we questioned our Japanese experts on how this could be, and they would give us the same surprised response. They valued housing for all as a mission and a core cultural belief.
At UR’s Nouvelle Akabanedai, we toured the housing complex of roughly 10 towers with members of the development and design team. They reiterated the balance of responsibilities between public funding agencies and their company. Each tower is the same height and uses similar materials, so the design feels efficient. However, you quickly understand the purpose is to optimize the number of units within the maximum zoning envelope permitted and to use a massing that could be designed and constructed efficiently. The design is familiar, matching the scale of the original housing towers. Several community rooms serve as multi-purpose spaces used for community meetings, training, test kitchens and children’s playrooms that connect to exterior park spaces that were all well used.
My cynical New York self couldn’t help but look at this seemingly utopian society in disbelief.
Is this what we could achieve if public-private partnerships were more systemized, and we treated affordable housing as a right and not a privilege?
My hope is that we take our lessons to heart and rethink how we can utilize public-private partnerships to provide much-needed affordable housing for everyone in our communities.