YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Real estate agents, attorneys and elected officials are joining the discussion about the need for affordable housing in the Mahoning Valley and across the state.
Bricker Graydon, a law firm with offices throughout Ohio, and the Ohio Realtors and the County Commissioners Association of Ohio organized a meeting Tuesday to discuss housing inventory issues in the Valley.
A panel discussion about housing issues was moderated by Mandy Hicks of the law firm. Panelists were Alexa Sweeney Blackann, interim CEO of Lake to River Economic Development; Ian Beniston, executive director of the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp.; Nick Chretien, planning and regional development manager at the Western Reserve Port Authority; and Jacquelin Lewis of Bricker Graydon.
The meeting follows the release of a housing strategy and recommendations earlier this year by Eastgate Regional Council of Governments. Several committees have been established to tackle recommendations outlined in that report.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Sweeney Blackann said the lack of housing across the Valley applies to all types.
“I don’t want to be overly simplifying, but it’s all of them,” she said. “Eastgate said this best, but if you consider housing from one to 10, 10 being … a $500,000 home – they’re all missing.”
That leads to company leaders living in Solon or Aurora because they can’t find the types of housing they want, she said.
Beniston sees the Valley’s housing challenges and opportunities as interconnected.
He listed challenges as an aged housing stock, limited production of new housing in the region, average market values of homes and local regulatory frameworks that govern where housing is built and how that figures into costs.
“We need to figure out how to reduce our total development costs …,” Beniston said.
Updated zoning is one way to do that. When builders encounter a zoning issue, it’s often because the zoning doesn’t reflect the reality of that area, the YNDC executive director said.
He said he’s a proponent of the Community Reinvestment Act in communities. Property taxes are abated in those areas for a designated number of years.
“Another thing that I’ve been thinking about is lowering the cost of capital,” Beniston said. “Whether that’s permanent financing, construction financing.”
Cleveland, for example, assembled a $100 million housing fund with a combination of public, private and philanthropic capital to help reduce costs.
“Keep in mind, doing things like that, to me, are particularly important because we’re not compromising the quality of the product,” he said. “We’re just paying less money for money.”
Also at the meeting, Veronica Cardello, assistant vice president of external engagement at Ohio Realtors, talked about tools developed by the association and the Greater Ohio Policy Center. It was developed with groups across the state, including builders and land banks.
One element is a step-by-step guide to help governments establish preapproved housing plans. It’s useful for infill, to build homes on lots where blighted properties have been razed, for example.
“This will help streamline the permitting process, and it also helps reduce the costs that a lot of our developers incur,” she said.
The toolkit can be found HERE.
The meeting was at the main branch of the Public Library of Youngstown & Mahoning County.
Pictured at top: Ian Beniston, standing, talks about Mahoning Valley housing challenges at a meeting Tuesday. Seated to his right is Nick Chretien; seated to his right is Alexa Sweeney Blackann.