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City presents affordable housing needs assessment, finds roughly 5,000 lower‑AMI units needed
Summary
Margaret Lee presented a 2026 needs assessment from Root Policy showing rising housing cost burden in McKinney and a gap of about 5,000 lower‑AMI rental units; the city plans to develop a formal affordable housing strategy and present a draft to council by the end of the fiscal year.
Margaret Lee, Housing and Community Development Director, briefed the board on a Root Policy‑prepared 2026 affordable housing needs assessment and recommendations. Using U.S. Census and regional HUD data, Lee said McKinney’s median household income is about $124,000 and that a household is considered cost‑burdened if it spends more than 30% of income on housing. She said Root Policy estimated a gap of roughly 5,000 lower‑AMI units needed to address current cost burdens.
"So there's about 5,000 households that are spending more than 30% of their income on housing," Lee said during the presentation. She described shifts in cost burden from lower AMI levels in 2015 to higher AMI groups (60–80% AMI) by 2023, noted a negative rental gap for households at 120% AMI that can crowd out lower‑income units, and said only about 1% of ownership units are accessible to households in the 81–100% AMI band.
Root Policy’s recommendations range from creating a formal affordable housing strategy with measurable objectives, to building strategic partnerships and strengthening existing programs across the affordability spectrum. Lee said the next steps include drafting an implementation framework (strategic and annual action plans plus monitoring) with a draft expected to go to council by the end of the fiscal year. She also reminded the board about an Affordable Housing Summit on April 13 intended to bring employers, developers and other stakeholders together to advance projects and partnerships.
In Q&A, a board member asked whether Root Policy had assessed apartment occupancy rates by complex; Lee said that specific analysis was not performed and offered to follow up to see if occupancy data by complex could be compiled.
