The CLT News Club presents this series of Solutions City panel discussions. The Charlotte Journalism Collaborative spent several months investigating ideas and projects from four cities Nashville, Philadelphia, Austin and Asheville, exploring solutions to different affordable housing topics. We set out to answer whether what works in those places could be part of Charlotte’s panacea – a Solutions City, of sorts.

In Nashville, a developer purposely bought a parcel near land owned by a nonprofit to increase how much affordable housing could be built there. Developers regularly come before local government boards to petition for land use regulations allowing multifamily housing, duplexes, accessory dwelling units and other types of housing. This approach uses the power of a developer/nonprofit partnership to increasing affordable housing stock. In Charlotte, Ascent Housing works to acquire and preserve affordable housing, often working with nonprofits. In one such example, Charlotte’s Roof Above bought a 23-acre apartment complex and worked with Ascent to acquire, finance and set an affordability plan for the project.

Join Genna Contino from The Charlotte Observer as we bring these two developers together to share ideas and find ways to create solutions for affordable housing.

The CLT News Club is a program of the Charlotte Journalism Collaborative (CJC) and supported by Wells Fargo. For more, visit charlottejournalism.org.