Solutions Sidebar: Finding Balance with Housing & Nature featuring M. Nils Peterson

COVID reminded scientific researcher and author M. Nils Peterson that multigenerational living does work and people used to do it more often. He sees it as a way to control urban sprawl and preserve the nature we so desperately need. One way is by building accessory dwelling units or backyard cottages. Peterson is working with his community to do just that.  

Interview guest: North Carolina State University researcher and author of “The Housing Bomb,” M. Nils Peterson. 

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Transcript

Ann Thompson:

How can you add housing while lessening its impact on the earth?

Nils Peterson:

We do need more housing, especially if we want to sort of promote affordable housing, but we also need to figure out ways to have less environmentally destructive housing.

Ann Thompson:

Years ago, generations lived in this same house, but then something happened. People started building even bigger homes and fewer people were living in them. Researcher and author Nils Peterson says it's possible to build more affordable housing, but in a smaller footprint,

Nils Peterson:

Allowing accessory units on existing properties and not just allowing 'em, but purposefully designing the rules so that they're easier, right?

Ann Thompson:

The North Carolina State researcher also talks about the importance of mental health and spending time in nature,

Nils Peterson:

Particularly in woods or forested areas, is good for mental and physical health, and that the more you get up to some limit, the better. But even small amounts are very good.

Ann Thompson:

Coming up on Brick by Brick, an interview with Nils Peterson, author of “The Housing Bomb.” We talk both housing and nature. Let's get into it. This is Brick by Brick: Solutions for a thriving community.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to leading support from Greater Cincinnati Foundation, AES Foundation and George and Margaret McLane Foundation, with additional major support from Laurie    Johnston, The Robert & Adelle Schiff Family Foundation, Murray and Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation and more. Thank you

Ann Thompson:

Researcher and author of “The Housing Bomb,” Nils Peterson. Welcome to Brick by Brick.

Nils Peterson:

Thanks for having me on the show.

Ann Thompson:

So more than a decade ago in graduate school, your advisor was studying how the building of new houses were impacting pandas in China. What was the concern and what did he find?

Nils Peterson:

The fundamental concern was just that new houses in panda habitat would fragment it, make it harder for the animals to move around and just take up space that they need to survive. But it was much more nuanced than that. A lot of the research focused not just on more houses within the habitat of panda, but also household dynamics in terms of changing changes in multi-generational households, the number of people that share a building and even how resources were used at the household level, like decisions about whether or not to use electricity made elsewhere or use fuel wood because choosing to use fuel wood not only impacted the place where the house was, but people would go out and gather it and remove trees and changed the landscape in ways that could be detrimental to the pan.

Ann Thompson:

So things that weren't always good for nature. Well, at the same time, you and your colleagues were concerned about the world's increasing population and how you could lessen the impact on the earth. And so what were your thoughts at the time around slowing down the pace and building and advocating for smaller houses?

Nils Peterson:

I believe originally you'd reached out to me because of “The Housing Bomb” book, which is kind of a playoff of Paul Ehrlich’s “The Population Bomb.” And the idea really for the environmental movement going way back is sort of we have this issue with too many people using up an outsized portion of the earth's resources that might otherwise support biodiversity and environmental processes. And there is this sort of demographic transition going on where population growth is slowing down and experts say we're actually going to face decreases in population eventually. But in terms of the human impact on the environment, it's always sort of the number of people times how each person uses resources. And one of the sort of biggest lever globally in terms of individual humans impact on resources is our household. Just the physical space it takes up, how it uses resources, all the resources that go into transportation networks and energy and moving water around all tied to our housing. So it was really interesting to us because it was like this is the biggest lever we can pull if we want to change the dynamic between how many people there are and how much resources we each individually use.

Ann Thompson:

But now as you know, we're in a housing crisis and we need more housing units. So how has your thinking evolved since you wrote the housing bomb? Why our addiction to housing is destroying the environment and threatening our society.

Nils Peterson:

So I guess back when I wrote the book, particularly coming out of graduate school, sort of seeing everything largely through an environmental lens, my focus was definitely more on the side of we just need to do things to have fewer houses and less environmentally damaging houses. And I still think that's a big issue. I think it's a problem though. I think my thinking has evolved to think about it from both sides of the coin. So we do need more housing, especially if we want to promote affordable housing, but we also need to figure out ways to have less environmentally destructive housing. And there are a lot of ways to do that that people have known about for a long time. So a lot of times I think advocates of affordable housing focus just on building more and building faster. And that's something basic supply and demand.

You need more units for the cost to go down, but that can be done in a strategic way to focus the extra housing on meeting needs of affordable housing. We don't need more of everything. And a lot of the trends in terms of housing show that even though we have a housing crisis for affordable housing, we're keeping up just fine for high cost housing. For housing that meets the top 10% of home buyers. There's always plenty available. We haven't fallen behind. So in terms of building more and building faster and loosening restrictions, that really does need to happen, but it only needs to happen for affordable housing and not the rest of the housing sector that's being built just fine on its own. Thanks to market forces that easily sort of overcome any regulatory barriers or constraints.

Ann Thompson:

You're right, the million dollar homes, there's no shortage of those, but when it comes to people trying to stay below 300 or 400,000, I think they somewhat advocate their needs to be a ramping up of building. But regardless, how do you do that? How do you balance environment with building? You said that there are ways to do that. What are your thoughts?

Nils Peterson:

So one is just using the regulatory tools we have to direct where the housing goes, right? There are tools people have practiced with or toyed around with urban growth boundaries and different density levels in different places. So you can build higher densities in areas where the landscape may be sort of like ecologically vulnerable. One of the big issues we identified in the research associated with “The Housing Bomb” is we have this sort of demand for housing at the edge of protected areas, natural areas, parks, and if there's not any regulations sort of restricting that, you end up sort of sealing these areas off, which tends to damage their ability to protect the environmental amenities they were established for in the first place. And then in terms of expanding housing in areas where it already exists and where natural landscape is arguably not as pristine and as useful in terms of meeting the needs of wildlife and other forms of biodiversity, you can do things like allowing accessory units on existing properties and not just allowing 'em but purposefully designing the rules so that they're easier. So you could have the first step is just saying, we're going to allow these units so that you can put two households on one parcel. But oftentimes those rules are written to make it very difficult, where you could only do that if you have a certain acreage that's maybe larger than half the parcels in your town or you can only do it if that accessory unit is very, very fancy, which sort of prices it out of the range of a lot of homeowners that might think it's a good idea to do

Ann Thompson:

Well. What about preservation? Because that would seem to fit in with your model of thinking about the environment and also not building everywhere, making sure houses don't fall down and then adapting them for more affordable housing.

Nils Peterson:

So not losing the housing we already have is an important step to take. I think the town I live in, Cary, North Carolina has a very long vision for future housing plan. And one of the core elements of it is protecting existing housing, keeping it within the pool of housing that we have through restoration maintenance. And in some cases if you're within a certain distance of the federal poverty line, you can get extra assistance in terms of staying in that housing or maintaining the housing. So there are various tools that municipalities can develop to protect and keep existing housing that may otherwise fall out of the pool.

Ann Thompson:

And as you've mentioned, creating housing doesn't have to be some huge footprint. The pandemic proved it was possible for families of four to live in a 2000 square foot house and to some extent, I guess people are maintaining that or going back to that.

Nils Peterson:

Yeah, I mean it certainly proved that it's possible. One of the big challenges we face with housing and its impacts is on one side we don't have enough affordable housing and there's not enough housing. But on the other side we have these sort of social trends and pressures to sort of kick kids out of the nest early, split families up, avoid multi-generational households. And I think bringing some of those households back together can also help address the housing shortage while avoiding the need for building new homes. And in some cases it can actually be good for people. I mean, I think depending on who you are, what family you're in, I mean everyone's different, but I think a lot of people found that having these multi-generational households during the pandemic was a good thing. One of the big challenges that people have talked about within the mental health sector is a lot of people are struggling with loneliness and that was magnified to the N degree during the pandemic, but having multi-generational households or more family members in a home can help address that as well.

Ann Thompson:

And it can be good for financial reasons. You can save up for a down payment for renting or for buying a home.

Nils Peterson:

Yeah, absolutely.

Ann Thompson:

Well, you are working to increase the housing supply. Are you making it easier to build auxiliary units of affordable housing or how is the town there doing that?

Nils Peterson:

So I live in a classic sort of suburban conglomeration of towns. So I serve on the board of a group called Wake Up, wake County that focuses on sustainable development basically in the county. In the county there are so many municipalities and I think three, four years ago, one of the large sort of core municipality, Raleigh made it much easier set up ordinances to allow ADUs and they've been expanding, people are adopting 'em. And some of the smaller municipalities of which there's more than a dozen, have also developed these A DU regulations to allow them some of, depending on the municipality, some are harder to deal with in terms of paperwork or acreage requirements or whatever it is. But I do think that's a trend that's expanding. And our group also looks a lot at transportation. So if we think about housing affordability, oftentimes there's this rule, the average sort of housing costs shouldn't exceed 30% of the income of the people and that's how you set up housing costs.

But a lot of times transportation isn't considered within those housing costs, but it is a big part if people are getting housing that requires really expensive transportation, that's part of the burden imposed by the cost of housing. So if you can design your zoning in such a way that higher density housing or more houses are going in and transportation corridors, particularly public transportation corridors where the costs are low, you can do a lot to reduce that burden associated with housing costs for people even though it's not something that's being done with the actual building, it's just the bigger sort of picture where everything's connected.

Ann Thompson:

Now in terms of building more backyard cottages, we know it's being done out west like Oregon and California. Are you starting to see more of that on the east?

Nils Peterson:

I mean I think it's expanding everywhere, particularly as housing costs go up, but I don't know off the top of my head exactly where it's the most or least or how fast it's growing.

Ann Thompson:

What about in your town?

Nils Peterson:

I mean it's definitely expanding in my town and largely because it's recently been allowed. So in a lot of a country they're simply prohibited and so it's just capped and nothing can happen. And the first step there is just saying, this is a thing. This is a way of building that's by right? The assumption is it's allowed and that then can open the door to all kinds of steps that can make it more feasible for individual homeowners more likely to happen.

Ann Thompson:

So it is allowed here in Cincinnati, it's been allowed for a couple of years and we really haven't seen that much of it. I don't know if it has to do with construction materials. It can be pretty expensive to build if you don't already have something on your lot. Well, you say you're an optimist and people will build more affordable housing even if the government isn't helping and you say people will push forward to value the environment. I'm wondering what examples of this that you're seeing around the country.

Nils Peterson:

I don't know that I'm that optimistic. I mean I think that we do need to encourage it. It's not something that, it's clearly not something that is sort of resolved itself already if it's the form. I do think in general markets work, right? And if there's a huge gap in affordable housing and that's where there's a sort of will and a demand for purchases and we're exceeding the need and the very high end of housing, then to some degree that's going to balance itself out. But at the same time, I think there's opportunity and also a need for policies that encourage building where that demand is, even if it may not look as lucrative at first to builders.

Ann Thompson:

And I am sure people are wondering how long this is going to take.

Nils Peterson:

Yeah, and I think you alluded a little bit to some of the challenges you mentioned. You have recent policy in Cincinnati allowing development of auxiliary units, but it hasn't really taken off. And part of the reason is within construction trades we have a big labor shortage now and then even without that labor shortage, if this policy was made two years ago, you may just be having your first ADU come online because even if you have good labor, it takes a while to build. And frankly, way back in college, I paid for part of my tuition building houses. And if you're building houses in a new scarified empty lot, it's much faster than if you're doing it in someone's backyard just in terms of the logistics and everything else. So it's a slow process even if there aren't extra regulatory hoops and even if there's not already a labor shortage. So it is right now a little bit of a tough time, but hopefully the labor shortage, it hasn't existed forever. It's not always going to exist in the future.

Ann Thompson:

I hope you're enjoying our conversation with Nils Peterson environmental researcher and author of the housing Bomb. There's more still ahead following this short break. This is Brick by Brick.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to the generous support of so many, including Diane and Dave Moccia, P & G, The Camden Foundation,  The Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, TJ and Susie Ackermann, Patti and Fred Heldman, a donation in memory of Frank and Margaret Linhardt, and more. Thank you. We couldn't do this work without you.

Mark Lammers:

Hey, we all have a different story even if we grew up in the same neighborhood or city, especially if we're talking about housing stories. Hi, my name is Mark Lammers, executive producer for Brick by Brick. Growing up lived on the west side of Cincinnati in a single family home, but I've also experienced apartment life in good and bad settings in a number of different cities. I learned a lot from those times in my life and from my journey as a whole. Now we want to hear about your housing story. That's the new audience question that's live on our show pages at thinktv.org and cetconnect.org. Log in and hit the green button to share your journey and what you learned from it. We hope to share some of your experiences and lessons as we move forward on Brick by Brick so we can all get smarter together. Thanks.

Ann Thompson:

Welcome back to Brick by Brick. I'm Ann Thompson. Let's get back into our conversation with Nils Peterson, author of “The Housing Bomb” and Emiko, Hernz, and I will be back at the end for some reflections. So our podcast, Brick by Brick in season number one focused on the housing crisis and possible solutions to lessen it. And in season number two, now we're layering the housing crisis with health and the environment. And your book and your research kind of touches all three. So your current research focuses on interactions between people and wildlife, and I'm wondering how does this balance help people and how much outdoor time do they need and how much nature do they need? Do you have to have a woods in your backyard or what?

Nils Peterson:

Yeah, so there's a lot of research going on now focused on how exposure to nature and different types of exposure to nature impacts wellbeing. And the research is focused some on mental health, but also on actual physical wellbeing where people are looking at biological measures of health and it's across the board good for you. The jury's out, if you will, in terms of what the dose is you need. Even though in some places that are very ambitious, they've actually issued prescriptions for nature were to deal with challenges. But I think the general consensus is that spending time in nature, particularly in woods or forested areas, is good for mental and physical health and that the more you get up to some limit the better. But even small amounts are very good. So some of the research we did was just a minimum of 30 minutes a week relative to none, and it helped.

And the most recent study we did was comparing people that were just grinding in their office, doing the normal thing to people that minimally did weekly nature walks to people that minimally did weekly bird walk or birdwatching trips of the same duration in the same place. And it was a neat study because it showed, at least in terms of self-reported measures of stress and happiness and mental health, the people, it was sort of like a stepping stone situation where just being out there helped relative to not and being out there focused on something that made you attentive to nature like birdwatching helped even more in terms of reducing stress levels.

Ann Thompson:

And when you talk about birdwatching, because you did a study as you mentioned on the mental health impacts of birdwatching, was that just walking around your neighborhood with a bird app or you're in the woods or to what extent was that?

Nils Peterson:

So this study was done on a urban greenway in the North Carolina State University campus. It's a forest canopy over the greenway, and that's where the nature walks happened as well. So it was all in the same place, same context, but it wasn't like a big amazing park. You could walk just a couple minutes in any direction off that greenway and you'd be in big tall buildings and concrete everywhere. It was just this small little oasis within the urban matrix.

Ann Thompson:

Well, that's great that you were seeing positive results on that. Are you going to continue studying and our other people looking at this around the country?

Nils Peterson:

Yeah. Yes to both. So we just finished a study we haven't been able to analyze where we tried to control things a little more and had people use over the air sound canceling headphones and listen to different types of soundtracks like birds and traffic noise and treated it basically tried to control the noise levels and exactly what people were hearing a little bit more. So we're doing that and there's a lot of research on this going on both domestically here in the US but also globally. It's something that I think that has captured a lot of interest for many reasons, and it sort of expands beyond just normal measures of health. There was a recent study, I think it was for all EU countries that showed bird diversity within little GIS blocks they made was as or more predictive of happiness measures across the whole kind of EU area as was income within those same areas. So there's all kinds of research from small experimental studies to big correlational studies of almost whole continents looking at the relationships we have between nature, where we live, how we spend our time, and our wellbeing and happiness.

Ann Thompson:

So what's your message to somebody, whether they're feeling stressed or not, maybe has an office job, maybe not as far as how nature can help you and how much time you need to spend in it? 

Nils Peterson:

Well, I guess my advice would be to get outside in nature and a lot of the research does show that for some reason forests help. So that obviously there's nature in a grassland as well, but forests seem to be good for us, so find yourself some trees and anything is better than nothing would be my other advice. So some of the research has been focused on things as small as like 30 minute exposures, so it doesn't need to be like you need to do at least 30 minutes plus five days a week. Like the golden rule of exercise. Something is definitely better than nothing. These new findings go beyond just how individually can I cope with stress, maybe be more productive at work, be happier. They also, I think, have some insight for communities that are trying to deal and think about housing strategically, right?

Because not only do we want affordable housing, do we want people near transportation corridors, but we want to protect these remnant patches of forests so people can actually be exposed to them and be happier and be healthier. And we want to ensure there's sort of equitable access to these little patches of trees and forests for people. The parks that are part of our planning aren't just there to play soccer or basketball in. They can do a lot if that green space is protected to help with mental health and health costs that are a burden on our communities if we don't do things to protect people's health.

Ann Thompson:

So we always ask the people we interviewed, what does a thriving community look like to you that can take in your research or not? What do you think?

Nils Peterson:

Wow, that's a good question. I think at the base, it's a community where the people within it aren't able to pursue their passions. I don't know, maybe that's too simple, but I'm trying to think of a small explanation that sort of covers everything at once.

Ann Thompson:

Yeah, good advice. Well, Nils Peterson, you've given us a lot to think about. Thanks for being on Brick by Brick.

Nils Peterson:

Thank you for having me. I enjoyed it.

Ann Thompson:

Remember, if you're interested in digging deeper into our conversation with researcher Niles Peterson about housing in the environment or want to learn more about brick by brick in general, there are plenty of web articles and videos. Go to cetconnect.org and think tv.org and we'd like to hear from you. Click on one of the big green buttons to share your feedback. That feedback is really important. Now, feedback from the team on this episode. It's time for takeaways, and we welcome to the microphone Hernz Laguerre, Jr.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Hello.

Ann Thompson:

And Emiko Moore.

Emiko Moore:

Hello

Ann Thompson:

Emiko What are your thoughts?

Emiko Moore:

Well, I understand the need to balance more housing while lessening the environmental impact, and I believe it's possible with innovation. For example, Miller Ecological Park in Lebanon has pavers in their parking lot, so it allows water to flow through the pavers and into the ground then where it can get soaked up into the soil and filtered making its way to aquifers. But pave surfaces such as concrete and asphalt prevent this natural drainage. And then you have 10 to 20% more surface runoff, which can lead to more flooding in areas and put a strain on our sewer systems.

Ann Thompson:

Yeah, that reminds me more than a decade ago, there was an effort on the west side of town to daylight a stream, which certainly helped with runoff.

Emiko Moore:

No, that's wonderful. When Nils Peterson talked about the importance of exposure to nature, that was music to my ears. In Japan, they have a term shinrin-yoku, which means forest bathing, and it's not actual bathing. This practice involves immersing yourself in nature, observing nature in the moment, and it has been shown to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and boost your immune system. So there's a lot in nature for physical and mental health.

Ann Thompson:

How interesting. Well, the interview with Nils reminds me of something that Chuck Marohn founder of Strong Towns said when he was talking about the fact that we needed a nationwide building. Boom. He mentioned not with huge homes, but with entry level units. This allows people to either own a 600 square foot starter house about the size of a wood bedroom apartment, which would be added onto over time, or they could rent an empty bedroom in somebody's house. Well, local governments, he says, can help pay for this kind of housing boom by co-signing loans and partnering with local banks and also allowing backyard cottages.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

And of course we covered that in our ADU episode in season one. There was one thing that Nils spoke about that made me think of our second episode in season two when he spoke about creating homes that help protect the environment. I thought about Chris Heckman and his net zero home with a net zero home. You focus on insulation and energy efficient windows to control the flow of heat. You focus on low energy lighting like LEDs or energy efficient appliances for big appliances like the fridge and the dishwasher, and also you focus on low flow fixtures and getting a more efficient water heater in order to make sure you're being more efficient with your water flow. All of this costs about 10% more according to different reports, but there's a savings over time that's done. And not only is there a savings over time for the homeowner, but also reduction in water flow, electric usage and the carbon footprint. So I think it's beneficial on both sides if there's enough investment in the beginning,

Ann Thompson:

Lots of things to think about as we try to make up that gap that we're short of millions of housing units

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

For sure.

Ann Thompson:

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

No problem.

Ann Thompson:

Thank you. We hope you're enjoying the holidays. We are too. Coming up on Brick By Brick, a bonus episode on January 7th.

Destiny Brown:

A registry can provide the framework so that housing cannot go indefinitely without certain repairs.

Ann Thompson:

A conversation on neighborhood solutions with four key Dayton voices.

Mike Squire:

I think there's a recognition across our community that this is not singularly on the city government. It's not singularly on tenants or landlords. This has to be a complete solution where we're all thinking creatively.

Ann Thompson:

Our show is produced, hosted an edited by me, Ann Thompson with reporting and story editing from Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore. Our Executive producer of Mark Lammers. Audio sweetening provided by Mike Schwartz. Zach Kramer runs the lights and cameras. Derrick Smith is our production specialist and Jason Garrison is our production manager. Kellie May heads up our marketing and promotions, along with Mike Shea and Bridgett Dillenburger. Elyssa Stefenson handles the website and Josh Lusby and Steve Wright are our designers. Bill Dean and Andres Kruza are the engineers for the show and our Chief Content Officer is Colin Scianamblo. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community is a production of CET and ThinkTV, Southwest Ohio PBS member stations.