Housing Overview

Instruction for Exercise 2 - Where Do You Want to Build New Homes?

Objectives:

  • To get participants to begin thinking about unmet housing needs in their community, where they would like to see new housing in their neighborhood and how increasing density can help meet unmet need while also keeping their community and neighborhood assets like schools, parks, historical buildings, etc.

Materials:

  • Exercise instruction sheet found below for each group
  • Housing goals develop in exercise 1
  • Aerial map (Google) of Community Plan Area (with foam core or cardboard behind)
  • Straight pins with heads of five different colors

Instructions:

  • Use a piece of cloth to create a set of pins for each table. The total number of pins in each set should equal 2,000 housing units.

Yellow: 8 homes (16 homes/acre)

Green: 15 homes (30 homes/acre)

Blue:25 homes (50 homes/acre)

White:50 homes (100 homes/acre)

Black: 100 homes (200 homes/acre)

For example:

10 Yellow x 8 homes = 80 homes at a density of 16 homes/acre

10 Green x 15 homes = 150 homes at a density of 30 homes/acre

14 Blue x 25 homes= 350 homes at a density of 50 homes/acre

10 Whitex 50 homes = 500 homes at 100 homes/acre

10 Blackx 100 homes= 1,000 homes at 200 homes/acre

Set of pins= 2,000 homes

  • Appoint a banker who keeps a healthy reserve of pins. Groups can go to the bank to trade their pins for lower or higher density pins. Groups must place all of their pins, so the banker must do the calculation on the trade-ins.
  • Break participants up into small groups. Each group will designate a person to report back to the group on the housing goals the group developed. Have at least one facilitator walking around the room to help and observe groups.
  • After about 15 minutes ask the groups to report out to the larger group on challenges or issues the small groups faced on deciding where their new housing should be developed. Issues to consider:
  • Was there adequate land for their housing goal?
  • Did they decide to build near transit? Why or why not?
  • What parcels of land did the group decide to build on and why?
  • What challenges did the group face in meeting their goal?
  • What type of housing and in what quantities did the group decide to build and why?

Where Do You Want to Build New Homes?

Small Group Exercise: Instructions

Materials:

Map of Community Plan Area (with foam core or cardboard behind)

Set of straight pins with heads of five different colors

Instruction Sheet

Instructions:

In this activity, you will be the one to decide where you want to locate new housing development. In front of you is a map of the West Adams-Leimert-Baldwin Hills Community Plan Area.

You have been given pins with different color heads. Each pin is worth a different number of housing units, depending on the density of the building (homes per acre). For every half acre of land, you can insert one pin. Here is what each pin is worth:

Yellow:8 homes (16 homes per acre)

Green:15 homes (30 homes per acre)

Blue:25 homes (50 homes per acre)

White:50 homes (100 homes per acre)

Black: 100 homes (200 homes per acre)

For every half acre you can insert one pin. If a property is bigger, you can add more pins. For example, a 2-acre property can hold 4 pins.

We have given you 2,000 homes worth of pins. You can trade in for different color pins if you would like to build at higher or lower densities.

Your goal is to try to fit all of your new homes in your community. The holes in the yellow card represent a ½ acre, 1 acre and 2 acres. Use it to estimate the size of the parcels where you put your pins. Don’t worry about being exact; your best guess is good enough. You can put pins anywhere you want, but remember that you will be replacing whatever is already on that property, and it is easier to get a developer to build on a larger property.

Good luck, and have fun!