HOUSING

Goal:

Strengthen and maintain existing neighborhoods while supporting the construction of new housing types at various price points.

The Importance Of The Housing Pillar

Neighborhoods are a fundamental building block of desirable communities, and quality housing is critical to neighborhood and community success. Neighborhood and housing condition varies across the IND15RPC region. While many cities and towns have well-preserved homes and have been able to realize new housing construction, other communities are experiencing increased vacancy and a lack of much needed investment in the existing housing stock. Factors related to the strength of housing in an area include a variety of products thereby creating housing choice; age, condition, maintenance, construction quality, and value. Other contributing influences on housing strength include public parks and open spaces, schools, community services and institutions, and job opportunities. The impact of these housing conditions (supply, affordability, quality) on population trends is significant.

Throughout the planning process, concerns were raised about the lack of variety and affordability in the region’s housing stock. Participants indicated that there are houses at the low end of the market that aren’t very desirable and several communities have some homes available at over $300,000. However, available choices in the $150,000 to $300,000 range are few and far between. People searching for homes in this price range often must expand their search outside of their target community. Subsequently, these households are then supporting retail businesses and restaurants closer to home. Lack of housing choice may also be hindering economic development efforts if targeted companies do not see housing availability for their employees and are not confident they will be able to keep the necessary workforce.

Additional reasoning for why housing is important for the IND15RPC region are:

• The existing housing stock across the region is aging and supply is limited. New residents and families have a difficult time finding immediate places to live.

• Due to a variety of reasons, housing is not being constructed to fulfill the needs of future residents. The diversity of housing prices and range of housing options from single-family to multi-family could be used to attract new residents from other regions.

• Because new units aren’t being constructed to keep up with demand, the region is looking to attract developers to the area to increase and expand housing availability.

• The region can leverage housing TIF districts to help fund sewer and water utility extensions to overcome financing challenges and realize more housing construction in more locations.