Affordable housing plan takes aim at sprawl "The Terwilliger Center for Workplace Housing"

The Washington-based institute has established a new research center to focus on the problem of affordable housing in an effort to prevent further urban sprawl.

The Center will find ways to help create housing for working families who are being pushed farther and farther away from employment centers, said J. Ronald Terwilliger, chief executive of Atlanta-based Trammel Crow Residential, which donated $5 million to the center, which will bear his name.

"The dental assistant who cleans your teeth, your child’s teacher, the mechanic who fixes your car," said Terwilliger. "These are the people getting squeezed by the housing crunch."

A national housing research institution began a program Thursday to build affordable homes so that teachers, firefighters and other middle-income workers can live closer to their jobs and avoid long commutes that have led to traffic jams and suburban sprawl.

The Urban Land Institute http://www.uli.org announced the birth of its Center for Workplace Housing, which will initially focus on three markets — Florida from Palm Beach County to Miami, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. — in an effort that the nonprofit group hopes will produce 3,500 new units of affordable housing within five years.

By BOB DART
Cox News Service

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