No, but there is a strong case for having a certain percentage of rented housing outside of the open market.
Yes! The question is, how do we pay for this? The most frequent proposal is always additional fees and restrictions on new market rate housing. All this does is penalize & reduce development at the expense of the middle class so a lucky few can get what subsidized housing is built as a result. As usual, the rich get to live wherever they want and are largely unaffected. It is ludicrous and it needs to stop.
In Seattle, there are requirements that certain percentage of housing in new structures be "affordable," or that the developer must pay hefty fees for additional height. There is also a property tax levy that funds affordable housing. I vastly prefer the latter solution. The entire community (not just newcomers) pays in a way that does not reduce the amount of new market rate housing that is built.
This is so true. The tenancy to extort any amount of 'affordable' housing from developers is, in the micro sense good for affordable housing, but in the macro sense, by increasing the cost of expanding the housing supply, very bad for affordable housing. Getting the macro-micro understanding right is difficult, as people see this micro level price increases on their block when someone redevelops new housing, they see the price of single family lots going inexorably up, but they can't see the increase in supply taking pressure off of older housing stock, or the value of attached units