Covington establishes committee on affordable housing development

This week, the Covington City Commission committed to two concrete actions to address the city’s affordable housing concerns.

The first is to establish a committee that will issue recommendations to the city commission on housing. The second is to instruct the city manager to identify 10 city-owned properties for sale. The proceeds will fund efforts to develop said housing.

“More and more people want to be here in our community,” said Mayor Ron Washington at the city commission meeting on Tuesday. “They want to live here. They want to play here. They want to work here. It’s time for us to look at the strategic land use [so] that we can help stabilize their neighborhoods and support housing for working families.”

The measures were Washington’s ideas, and he gave a presentation on the state of housing in Covington at the meeting. During his presentation, Washington pulled heavily from a housing study published by the Northern Kentucky Area Development District in 2023, which examined the issue of housing in the district’s eight counties, including Kenton County.

Understanding NKY’s housing shortage

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.

Washington’s research and presentation came away with a handful of key takeaways:

• Covington has a higher number of affordable rental units than neighboring communities, but these units are often older and in poor condition
• 60.5% of Covington residents are renters
• There is a dearth of middle-income rental properties in the city and a rising demand for one to two-bedroom units
• The city needs to develop a strategy for building out affordable options for people making less than 50% of the area median income. Covington’s median area income is $58,814.
• Covington needs to furnish 891 new units of housing by 2028 to keep up with demand.
• There are around 200 vacant and abandoned properties in the city.
• The city holds title to about 50 lots.

“We have plenty of people that are viable,” Washington said. “They’re working, they’re trying to make ends meet, but they’re sleeping on the couch” because it’s so difficult to afford housing.

Washington mentioned that the city’s public works department was responsible for maintaining the abandoned properties, and since they didn’t generate property tax revenue, they were inevitably a drain on the city’s resources.

To that end, the mayor asked City Manager Ken Smith to identify ten of the most valuable lots currently owned by the city and send out requests for proposals to developers “both for-profit and nonprofit,” Washington said.

Any money made off the sale of those 10 properties would be redirected back into affordable housing development in the city, including efforts to deal with the remaining 200 abandoned and vacant properties assigned to the committee.

There was some discussion among the commissioners about whether the city and the committee would be vetting developers.

Commissioner Tim Acri expressed some concern that the city might be “allowing developers to come in and turn these into rentals, where we just slip in 10 years back to another house we don’t want in the city.”

While Washington didn’t preclude the possibility of rental properties going into the lots, he emphasized that the city would be heavily involved throughout the process to ensure any developments that took root would be affordable and accessible.

“There will be people who want to speculate and maybe try to buy the property and then flip it,” Washington said. “No, we don’t want that. We want it to be income-aligned housing.”

The committee would focus on filling vacant lots, rehabbing abandoned houses and exploring other strategies for meeting the housing demand. It will have no direct legislative power but instead will issue recommendations to the city commission, which will cast final votes on measures.

The committee will consist of four voting members appointed by the mayor and the mayor himself, who will chair the committee. The city commission will vote to affirm or deny the mayor’s appointments.

In addition, City Solicitor Frank Schultz, City Manager Ken Smith, Neighborhood Services Director Brandon Holmes and Director of External Affairs Sebastian Torres will serve as non-voting advisory members.

The committee’s duties will include the following, as laid out by the text of the municipal order that established the committee:

• Perform a comprehensive inventory of available lots and produce an assessment report laying out their locations and current owners
• Determine pros, cons and potential obstacles for developing each vacant lot or abandoned property
• Review zoning and present a report to the City Commission about possible zoning reform
• Issue recommendations about how lots in grouped and which development strategies will maintain Covington’s historic and cultural character
• Consider whether the city should create and hire a position to oversee and implement housing strategies
• Solicit public input from Covington residents, businesses and organizations how to best handle the issue of housing in the city

The committee will need to submit an initial report laying out its recommendations within a year of its establishment and then submit a final report within two years. The committee will meet at regular intervals, at least once per quarter.

The measures were popular among the commissioners.

“This sounds great,” said Commissioner Shannon Smith succinctly.

The city manager said the process for issuing the requests for proposals from developers should be simple enough.

“Picking up the [properties] that we thought would be the best for the highest value shouldn’t be much of an exercise,” Smith said.

Both measures received unanimous approval from the city commission.