Dayton’s elected leaders characterized the draft Dayton Housing Policy as more of a framework than an actionable set of policies, but they said the document has a lot of value and they look forward to next steps.
“This is a long-term or strategic kind of a process,” said Dayton City Commissioner Chris Shaw. “I like this as a starting point.”
City officials and staff recently gave a presentation to the city commission about a 35-page draft of a proposed Dayton Housing Policy.
The document spells out challenges in the local housing market, like a shortage of affordable housing, and makes recommendations about how to improve and expand the housing supply.
Top specific recommendations
The city in June held four community input sessions where about 125 people provided feedback about what they view as the most important housing priorities and policy ideas.
The most popular recommendation calls for using receivership to wrest control of properties away from nonresponsive owners, especially those who own large multi-family properties.
Ohio law allows local courts to appoint receivers to abate nuisance conditions at residential properties if the owners cannot or refuse to take action.
Receivers are put in charge of correcting housing code violations and managing the properties, which can lead to their rehab and sale to new owners.
The second most popular recommendation directs the city to study what other Ohio jurisdictions are doing to get tough on the owners of tax-delinquent properties, especially limited liability companies (LLCs).
People often use LLCs to safeguard their personal assets from litigation related to their properties.
Using LLCs can make it difficult to determine who actually owns a property or to hold those individuals accountable for problems, such as code violations.
Some community members want the city to start a vacant housing registry, which typically requires owners to register their empty properties, pay fees for their vacant units and submit redevelopment plans for their potential reuse.
Another policy proposal community members liked would direct the city to prioritize using a share of its federal Community Development Block Grant funds for housing pilot programs.
These programs could help create things like tiny homes, cooperative housing and help convert vacant buildings into housing.
Tiny homes, which often range in size from 100 to 400 square feet, typically cost only a fraction of the price of standard for-sale product.
Cooperative housing is where tenants do not own their units, but they own a share of the corporation that owns the building.
Community members also told the city they would like it to develop home repair loan programs with no income restrictions and to work with the local banking community to develop new loan options for home repairs.
Next steps for the city
The document’s policy goals and recommendations are expected to be incorporated into city employees’ work plans, and city officials say they hope city leadership will make budget decisions with these in mind.
The next steps in this process include getting the city commission to adopt the Dayton Housing Policy, and commissioners will be asked to appoint a steering committee to provide guidance about what recommendations to prioritize, said Todd Kinskey, Dayton’s director of planning, neighborhoods and development.
Kinskey said the city believes all the policy recommendations are important, but the steering committee would help with prioritization based on factors like cost, ability to implement and partner organization capacity.
Commissioners Shenise Turner-Sloss and Darryl Fairchild said the Dayton Housing Policy has lots of good information and ideas, but they don’t believe it really contains actionable policy steps.
They said they want specific action plans for how to achieve the housing goals and priorities.
Commissioner Shaw said the document is going to be useful and it’s going to take time to make meaningful changes, especially when it comes to the big-picture housing ideas.
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