YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – Tackling the housing crisis across the Mahoning Valley is no easy task, and accomplishing the mission will take a group effort.
Local leaders got a glimpse Thursday of a plan more than a year in the making, addressing the area’s problems and how to fix them.
Jobs without housing doesn’t make for much of a community, but the Mahoning Valley and its partners are trying to fix that.
“The area is really prime for development. The employers, the businesses, the site selectors that come here, the first question they ask is where are our employees going to live,” said Jim Kinnick, executive director of the Eastgate Regional Council of Governments.
The Eastgate Regional Council of Governments rolled out is Mahoning Valley Regional Housing Strategy. It’s a plan to stabilize and strengthen the housing market across Mahoning and Trumbull counties, exploring everything from the luxury market to housing that serves the region’s most vulnerable populations.
“We talked to over 100 or 125 different people. Some of those folks were community leaders, but we did also talk to folks who are on the ground living in these neighborhoods,” said Alison Goebel, executive director of the Greater Ohio Policy Center.
The plan takes aim at policy, program and funding adjustments. Things like incentivizing employers to offer down payment assistance for home buyers or streamlining the building process for developers.
“The permitting process for builders is expensive and long. So, the concept of something like pre-plans, where the community adopts a pre-plan and the builder agrees to use the pre-plan,” said Guy Coviello with the Warren Regional Chamber.
The study also revealed more about the current housing infrastructure, where it’s lacking and where there is excess.
“It was helpful to know that we have an overstock of three and four bedroom,” Coviello said.
From here they will break down into focus groups, hoping to implement some of the elements of the plan throughout the year.
“We’ll spend this year bringing everything together, identifying what those are so hopefully by the end of the year or throughout the course of the year, we’ll roll out some of these programs,” Coviello said.
Eastgate says the problems facing the area aren’t unique but no less challenging.
“The model is easy to write down but to get the results needs cooperation,” Kinnick said.
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