Ivory Innovations announces four winners of affordable housing prize

Ivory Innovations, a number one Utah-based non-profit group devoted to addressing the housing affordability disaster, has named four winners of the 2024 Ivory Prize for Housing Affordability.

Now in its sixth 12 months, this competitors celebrates the work of modern organizations making an influence in housing affordability in three areas of focus: development and design, finance, and coverage and regulatory reform.

“The winners of the 2024 Ivory Prize are a testomony to the ability of daring new concepts in housing,” mentioned Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes and founder ofIvory Innovations. “Housing affordability is a continued and rising problem for tens of millions of Americans and we’d like innovative solutions of all sorts to make a distinction within the housing trade. We invite you to hitch us in studying about and celebrating new housing approaches which have the potential to make distinctive constructive change.”

Ivory Innovations is headquartered on the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, the place it engages college students in its efforts, by an annual entrepreneurial competitors known as Hack-A-House, in addition to scholarships, a course on housing innovation and internships related to the Ivory Prize search.

The four winners, chosen from greater than 200 contributors, have emerged as champions of innovation, demonstrating excellent ambition, feasibility and scalability of their efforts to deal with the pressing challenge of housing affordability. Ivory Innovations will distribute a complete of $300,000 to help these group’s transformative initiatives.

Through Villa’s “asset-light infill mannequin,” this California dwelling builder implements housing density at scale whereas sustaining a dedication to considerate design. The City of San Diego’s ADU Bonus Program permits for the creation of much-needed “lacking center” housing by creating an efficient native incentive to construct accent dwelling items, or ADUs. The Housing Opportunities Commission of Montgomery County’s Housing Production Fund allocates funds to the event of extra housing within the county and particularly extra affordable housing. Finally, FirstRepair builds on the revolutionary work of Evanston, Ill., the place leaders handed a reparations program, benefiting communities subjected to historic housing discrimination, within the type of a housing-dedicated fee.

Additional particulars concerning the four winners are included under and ativoryprize.org/winners-2024

1. Villa| San Francisco, Calif.|Construction & Design Winner– Using an asset-light strategy to deploy housing in lacking center infill areas, Villa is ready and dedicated to assembly the housing wants of communities throughout America.

“The root trigger of America’s housing affordability and availability challenges is many years of housing underproduction,” mentioned Sean Roberts, CEO of Villa, a California-based homebuilder. “The housing scarcity is much more extreme for folks searching for smaller, entry-level properties in fascinating areas the place they wish to reside, work and go to highschool. Our mission at Villa is easy: to be the best, quickest, and most cost-efficient approach to construct properties. We are centered on constructing these much-needed properties in infill areas utilizing prefabricated development and we’re excited to proceed to develop Villa with the improved help from the Ivory Innovations ecosystem.”

1. Housing Opportunities Commissionof Montgomery County: Housing Production Fund | Kensington, Md. | Finance Winner– This Maryland county makes use of an modern funding and improvement mannequin to create mixed-income social housing, with 30% of items devoted to low-income households.

“The Housing Opportunities Commission (HOC) of Montgomery County is honored that our Housing Production Fund (HPF) was chosen as a 2024 Ivory Prize winner and we’re proud to be acknowledged as a ‘housing visionary,’” HOC President Chelsea Andrews mentioned. “The HPF is revolutionizing the best way affordable housing is financed and its knowledge has been validated not solely by the Ivory Prize award judges, however by the communities throughout the nation that already are replicating it to satisfy their very own affordable housing wants.”

1. The City of San Diego:ADU Bonus Program| San Diego, Calif. | Policy & Regulatory Reform Co-Winner– This program incentivizes improvement of accent dwelling items, or ADUs, within the City of San Diego to extend density in single-family neighborhoods and the provision of deed-restricted items.

“Being acknowledged by Ivory Innovations for aggressive modifications to our native Land Development Code to permit for a large-scale enhance in Accessory Dwelling Unit manufacturing is an honor for the City of San Diego,” mentioned Development Services Department (DSD) Assistant Director Gary Geiler, chief of the City’s Accessory Dwelling Unit program. “Coupling density bonuses for affordable items and the power to extra effectively make the most of high-cost land parcels with a number of ADUs by waiving Development Impact Fees collectively have created a wave of new improvement that didn’t beforehand exist. In addition, the DSD crew prioritized ADU opinions, delivering the reviewed permits shortly and ministerially, thus contributing to value financial savings by the ADU developer. We hope to see 1000’s extra ADUs within the close to future.”

1. FirstRepair| Evanston, Ill. | Policy & Regulatory Reform Co-Winner– This non-profit localizes housing-related redress as a primary step to restore the legacy of slavery within the United States, and hopes to carry its mannequin to different areas.

“When I started our reparations work in Evanston and later based FirstRepair, I didn’t assume that our work could be eligible for a housing award,” mentioned Executive Director Robin Rue Simmons, a former elected Evanston alderman. “Our work started from listening to the group, and one of an important subjects for Evanston group members was housing. FirstRepair’s objective is to help reparations packages that greatest match the wants of the native communities we work with. And, like Evanston, many communities across the nation face severe housing challenges. Being chosen as an Ivory Prize winner not solely validates our work as an answer for racial fairness but additionally as an answer on the forefront of housing innovation.”

These visionary winners embody the spirit of innovation and reveal the ability of transformative concepts in fixing the housing affordability disaster. From launching modern insurance policies to main the cost for nationwide reparations, every group’s distinctive strategy showcases the potential to revolutionize the housing trade. Housing affordability impacts tens of millions of Americans, and Ivory Innovations is hopeful that with organizations like these, the trade is taking steps towards making housing higher for all.