April 21--No one moves into their dream home, their forever home, wondering how well the property and community will work for them when age starts to take a toll.
But with such a large segment of the population growing older, and one survey after another showing that consumers would prefer to stay in their homes, aging in place, public policy experts are trying to encourage consumers and decision-makers to start those conversations.
For consumers, AARP has tried to make digging into the topic a little less overwhelming by pulling together some 200 data sources on a variety of factors about where and how people live and creating a customizable livability index, right down to a specific address.
The Web-based tool is primarily designed for people who haven't yet had to adapt their lifestyle and their environment to their changing abilities and for consumers comparing communities where they might one day live. There are seven categories -- housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement and opportunity -- and subcategories in each. The affordability, accessibility and variety of housing is key. Other factors that play into the scores are access to exercise opportunities in health, access to jobs via public transit in transportation and high school graduation rates in opportunity, to name a few.
The index generates an overall livability score from 0 to 100 but also a score for each of the seven categories.
Naperville, for instance, has a livability score of 56, but its score for housing is only 35, largely because of issues related to housing affordability. Evanston's overall score is 55 but it only gets a 28 for civic and social involvement. Homewood's environment score rated 38 because of air-quality issues but its overall score was 50. The index is at aarp.org.
So what's a good score? It depends on personal preferences. One renter or homebuyer may be willing to sacrifice transportation options for home affordability, while another may place importance on easy access to grocery stores and health care services.
"There's no such thing as the perfect choice," said Rodney Harrell, director of livable communities for AARP's public policy institute. "Every neighborhood has its compromises. No neighborhood in the country scores perfectly. The neighborhood with the best transportation in America gets 100 but every neighborhood has something that can be improved."
Harrell hopes the index, the data sources of which will be updated annually, can be used by consumers and policymakers alike to improve their communities to meet the needs of an aging population, inside and outside the home. "The average person is not going to look ahead," he said. "This provides information to policymakers that make these changes."
Step by step, some communities are moving in that direction.
Last year, for instance, Cincinnati passed an ordinance that offers property tax abatements to some newly constructed and renovated homes and condominiums that meet visitability standards. Austin, Texas, has a visitability ordinance that takes effect in July. And Bolingbrook has had an ordinance since 2003 that requires newly constructed single-family homes and town houses to be accessible.
It's a topic that hits close to home for Patsy Welch, a Chicago-area architect building a single-family, eco-friendly home in Wildwood that's intended to be barrier-free. While studying architecture, she watched as the condominium her parents happily lived in for 25 years no longer fit their needs as they aged.
Among the features of the 1,800-square-foot, still-to-be-priced home that will be listed this summer are closets stacked on top of each other that can be replaced by an elevator, if need be.
"You don't think of yourself being in a walker or a wheelchair," Welch said. "I hope with all the baby boomers getting older, people will start thinking about it."
Energy data benefit. Since July 2013, Chicago home sellers have had a way to easily disclose their annual energy costs on listing sheets, as a result of a partnership between Midwest Real Estate Data LLC, the local multiple listing service, the city of Chicago and nonprofit Elevate Energy. Now the partnership has some numbers to show from the effort. Condominium listings that disclosed energy costs spent about 25 fewer days on the market than other condos, while detached homes spent eight fewer days on market, according to an analysis by Elevate Energy.
mepodmolik@tribpub.com
