Boone County Judge-Executive Gary Moore acknowledged the need for more low- and low-to-moderate-income housing in Northern Kentucky before a state housing task force Monday, telling state legislators local control “will be huge” in regional efforts to help fill the shortage.
Moore testified along with the Kentucky Association of Counties (KACo) to the Kentucky Housing Task Force about an NKY housing working group launched this year in response to a 2023 regional Stantec housing study.
A study of housing in Northern Kentucky has revealed troubling trends for housing in the region, with the largest need being for “workforce housing” for households earning between $15 and $25 per hour, with monthly housing costs between $500 and $1,500. The region needs about 3,000 more housing units to provide for people within that income range, according to the study. The demand for one- to two-bedroom rentals and owned properties consistently exceeds their supply, while supply for three and four-bedroom properties consistently exceeds demand. The study suggests that the region needs to build 6,650 housing units to support economic development in the next five years, which equates to 1,330 units per year. Read more here.
Understanding NKY’s housing shortage
The study showed a need for 6,650 new housing units in the eight-county NKY area development district region to meet workforce demands in the next five years. Of those units, 3,260 should run between $500-1500 monthly. An additional 500 units are needed for very low-income households able to afford $320 a month or less for housing, the study said.
Monthly housing costs for the remaining 2,890 units were not specified in the Stantec report.
Northern Kentucky area development district counties—Boone, Campbell, Kenton, Grant, Pendleton, Owen, Gallatin and Carroll—are working together and individually to find solutions to the shortage, said Moore, collectively taking into consideration issues like land affordability, population needs, and worker commute times that should be 20 minutes max.
The regional working group is expected to issue recommendations later this year based on its review of the Stantec study, said Moore.
“We know what’s acceptable to a community varies from county to county and even within a county. So we know that within counties, local control is going to be huge,” said Moore. “We know that planning and zoning will do its job.”
High interest rates, demand for higher rent, a strong market for large single-family homes and large apartments versus less lucrative housing and the price of land all factor into housing access in the region, said Moore. NKADD counties to the south often have more affordable farm land for development than NKY’s core counties, said Moore, lending credence to the regional approach.
“If you can get it for $60,000 an acre, you’re doing well,” Moore said of farmland in Boone County. “So immediately, this idea of building attainable, income-aligned housing becomes quite challenging, and that’s why we like the regional approach to our work. In most cases, those counties want population and are close enough in commute time.”
Income also factors into what housing is built and where. The highest median household incomes in the NKY development district are in Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties, with the exception of a portion of Grant County west of I-75 near Williamstown and a portion of northeast Pendleton County. Those are the only counties in the development district that have median incomes that fall within the $71,000 to $120,000 annual range, according to the study.
But Moore said it is increasingly difficult for people making those middle to higher salaries to find homes in the region.
“We have data that says a person earning between $70,000 and $106,000, whether that’s an individual wage or household, can afford $1600-2500 a month. There’s not housing being built that you can owner-occupy for that. You may be lucky to find an apartment for that. So fixing this problem is going to take some creative solutions,” he told lawmakers. “So county issues vary greatly from one county to the next.”
Boone County has the largest overall housing gap in the NKY development district, with a shortage of 11,350 units or 5.5% of the state’s housing gap total, according to a housing supply study presented to the legislative task force in June.
Kenton County has the second largest gap (4.4%) followed by Campbell County at 2%, based on that data.
The Kentucky Housing Task Force, which met for the first time in June, was created by the 2024 Kentucky General Assembly by resolution (HCR 68) to study policies impacting housing access in the state. It is expected to report its findings and potential recommendations to state lawmakers by Dec. 1, 2024.
As for the NKY housing working group, the Stantec study provides baseline data for needs that go beyond housing, according to regional NKY stakeholders. One of those stakeholders is CVG Airport, which helped to fund the study along with the district’s counties.
Airport CEO Candace McGraw called workforce needs “top of mind” in the housing discussion in a statement on the NKADD website.
“There are many factors that impact economic growth in our region. Workforce is top of mind for all employers, and housing is a fundamental issue for workers,” she said. “This study points out that housing availability will continue to be a key issue that helps or hinders our region’s growth. I urge local leaders to work toward creative and collaborative solutions to meet this challenge.”
In his comments Monday, Moore framed finding solutions to housing concerns in more draconian terms.
“The communities that figure this out are going to be the winners in the economic development world. Because the need for employees is outgrowing the supply of housing,” Moore told lawmakers. “We need to figure this out because if we don’t, it’s going to kill economic development.”