November General Membership Meeting
A Proactive Plan for Future Growth in Columbus
On Thursday, November 21 CAA members met at Mozart’s Café for the final General Membership meeting of 2024. CAA Executive Director Laura Swanson welcomed members and congratulated CAA Board Member Dalia Kalgreen of Unified Residential on her recent graduation from the National Apartment Association Leadership Lyceum earlier in the month.
Next, Swanson thanked members for their generosity, raising over $10,000 at this year’s Reverse Raffle for the CAA Community Assistance Foundation. This year’s Foundation recipients were recognized at the meeting with CAA and CAF Board member Carrie Sitterley distributed checks to Families Flourish, Huckleberry House, Patches of Light, Red Cross and Scholar House.
Swanson then welcomed keynote speaker, Dave Dixon, Director of Analytics & Strategy with the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission.
Dixon start by stating he had a lot to speak about, not only about population growth and “people” in the region, but also about providing services, amenities and quality of life for all those people.
“A state you may have heard, 3.15 million people expected by 2050, yes, that’s the number, but there are a lot of stories behind that and there’s a lot of work that goes into trying to plan proactively for that growth,” said Dixon to set the tone. “The data says that we’ve continually had strong, steady growth for decades, our current forecast predicts that we will continue to have strong, steady growth for decades. That’s a good thing, it’s predictable, for one, we know it’s coming, which means we can plan for it and it’s not happening so fast that we can’t make smart decisions to get ahead of it”
Dixon noted that cities like Austin and Boise have grown so quickly they’ve had challenges when it comes to housing, transit and cost of living. He noted that the steady growth is an opportunity for Columbus. In 2021 MORPC forecast that 272, 000 new households would be necessary. If there’s not a housing unit for every household, people get pushed out, they double up or, worst case, they become unhoused.
“We anticipate that almost three quarters of the growth will come from people moving to the region, that could be from around the state, around the country or around the world,” Dixon said. “In the past, in the Central Ohio region, immigration has accounted for about half our growth, so if you think three quarters sounds like a high number, it is but, if you didn’t know it already, about half of our growth as been coming from immigration.”
The rate at which the region has been adding units has fluctuated. 20 years ago, more housing was being built than now. The rate of growth has been about the same over the past few years, meaning, we’re behind. There is a target for adding 200,000 units by 2035 in an 11-county region with 100,000 units in the city of Columbus and 100,000 units in the rest of the region.
MORPC and their partners recently completed a regional housing strategy effort looking into root causes of under building and potential recommendations. Barriers include cost, financing and “not in my backyard” mentality. The solutions depend on where you live. Certain communities are embracing more rapid growth, others don’t want it. A recent housing coalition projection states that the area will run out of housing units by 2030.
“One way or another, if we want to continue to grow and continue to be as prosperous as we have been, fortunate as we have been in recent decades, we do need to build more, we need to find those fits. Wherever you are, we need to think about what would work, what does make sense,” Dixon said. “We hear a lot about I don’t like that, or we don’t want to see that. ‘What do you want to see?’ We need to add more units. ‘Where? What do they look like? What would you agree too?’ that’s how we move forward.”
From 2017 to 2022 the average home sale price in the MORPC 15-county region went up almost 60%. This is a challenge to growth. As we welcome those hundreds for thousands of new neighbors, we’ve got to address the need for housing.
In a recent survey of 2,000 residents of Central Ohio asking ‘Can you find housing in Central Ohio that you can afford and meets your needs?’ only 38% of those who responded indicated they can. Respondents currently renting were asked, would you prefer to rent or to own if cost were not a barrier?’ 57% said they would prefer to own, if costs were not a barrier.
Residents were also asked, if anything, what they’ve had to sacrifice to pay for your rent or mortgage. Households earning $35,000 or less per year, almost half said they sacrifice food before their rent. 405 said clothing, a third said clothing, auto payment/repair or transportation. When it increases to households making $100,000 or more 11% are sacrificing food.
“If I came to talk to you 10 years ago, in Columbus, Ohio and said, ‘If you’re bringing in 100K to your house, you might have to skip some groceries if you want to keep it.’ You’d say this guy has to be kidding me,” Dixon stated. “If the trends don’t change, what will this look like in a year, five years, 10 years?”
The Regional Housing Strategy is online at the MORPC website which identifies many challenges and recommendations for addressing barriers to housing. A healthy housing market does not look like big blocks of one thing, it looks like something for everyone.
Dixon went on to touch on some weatherization, transportation and infrastructure including the addition of sidewalks and trails and the proposed reintroduction of passenger rail in Columbus and the new airport terminal.
Swanson thanked members for attending and encouraged them to check the online calendar for 2025 events.
