ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the criteria that are used to determine whether a site is suitable for affordable housing and how sites may be obtained for that purpose. Finding suitable sites for affordable housing can be a difficult proposition. Where the local housing market is healthy, developers of affordable housing will have difficulty competing financially with market-rate developers for sites that are both physically appropriate and suitably zoned. While some towns turn down projects knowing that their action will be overturned, hoping to gain some political advantage, such behavior is both bad policy and irresponsible governance. No housing can be built without a site to put it on, and no site, once acquired, can be developed without receiving the approvals imposed by state and local government bodies. Most criteria for selecting sites for affordable housing are no different than they would be for a housing development of similar physical type that might be built for the marketplace.
