Livable West Fargo
Working with AARP North Dakota and the City of West Fargo, our volunteers are advocates for helping the community be a city for all ages. The eight domains of livability identified by AARP are housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity.
About
CivicWest continues with its commitment to demonstrating the issue of Missing Middle Housing to West Fargo residents. By definition, "missing middle housing" is in a range of house-scale buildings with multiple units compatible in scale and form with detached single-family homes, located in a walkable neighborhood.
This diagram helps illustrate this concept. Bottom line, more dense housing is needed across the country---and certainly in West Fargo---to provide affordable housing for the first time homebuyer to the aging population who want to downsize. Currently, there is no inventory of housing that meets the financial needs of these two demographics. If a family with a modest income wants to buy a home, currently median new homes run between $350-400K, well outside the ability to have a required down payment and afford the monthly mortgage payment. For the retiree, who currently may own one of the homes in the price points affordable to the first time homebuyer, they simply can't afford to move, because the cost of the housing to replace it is greater than the home they occupy. Steps in the home and access has created challenges for the senior resident who wants to age in place, but eliminate the obstacles.
.png)
On September 19, Missing Middle Housing expert, Megan Reineccius, will be conducting a walking tour for city officials, developers and interested participants with CivicWest, to identify the missing middle housing in order to acquaint the public with the issue. West Fargo's Planning Director, Aaron Nelson, has assisted by identifying an area of West Fargo that represents this issue. Watch this space for more information and how you can get involved.
Megan is also a lunch keynote for the ND Planning event taking place in Grand Forks this fall. This event further provides the state's planners on the concept of addressing missing middle housing in ND communities. Megan's appearance at the Conference as well as the walk audit in West Fargo, is sponsored by North Dakota AARP, which is also a sponsor of CivicWest, West Fargo. An update from ND AARP was provided by Janelle Moos of AARP ND at a Civic West meeting held on July 11.
