COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Senate has formed a new select committee on housing. The committee plans to address the extra steps Ohio’s housing crisis needs.
State Sen. Michele Reynolds is the chair of the committee and plans to hear various perspectives to understand the challenges Ohioans face. The goal is to put forth some possibel solutions with other lawmakers who are apart of the committee.
“The goal of this committee is to learn about what barriers currently exist,” said Reynolds, R-Canal Winchester. “It is essential that we prepare and learn how to foster smart residential development so that more people can participate in the American dream of homeownership.”
Some issues addressed at the first meeting include: housing shortages, inflation, taxes and affordability.
Lydia Mihalik, the director of the Ohio Department of Development, told lawmakers on the committee about a new program that the state thinks will help Ohio housing. It’s called “Welcome home Ohio! Homebuyer Incentives Program.”
The program will provide $25 million in grants each year to land banks to let banks purchase, rehabilitate or build residential properties and provide tax credits to the land.
“I think we estimate that approximately 270 sites across the state could be purchased through this program or through this particular program in this biennium,” said Mihalik.
As the committee prepares to address housing in Ohio looking at inflation and affordability is a major factor.
According to the 2023 housing needs assessment, there are more than 440,000 extremely low income renters in Ohio. Meanwhile, more than 170,000 of those rental homes are considered affordable.
“We see a shortage of affordable rental housing due to limited inventory,” Shawn Smith, the executive director of Ohio Housing Finance Agency, said. “High market costs and low vacancy rates. This has a significant impact on low- to moderate-income Ohioans.”
Smith told lawmakers the new state housing tax credit program provides nearly $100 million a year in tax credits for the next four years to support the development of low income multifamily home rentals. But, State Sen. Andrew Brenner questions how much the tax credits could go toward helping Ohioans.
“Even with these credits and everything else,” said Brenner, R-Delaware, said, “given where the current rates are at around 7%, 6 to 7% range. Even if they come down in the next few months, I don’t see how any of these is really going to have a major impact on the market considering last year 2022, we only had about 31,000 units in Ohio built in the entire state for all new housing.”
The committee plans to continue meeting to address the current housing situation in Ohio and find possible solutions.
