Louisville Homeowners, Man Your Stations!
Louisville Homeowners, Man Your Stations!
'Affordable Housing' - Part 1: The ‘Middle Housing’ torpedo has been fired.
The Fastzone.substack blog has focused on the Brett Hankison trials and the Consent Decree for many months. The Breonna Taylor ‘raid’ is a related issue. And believe it or not, that is also related to the Affordable Housing agenda.
As if the toolbox to facilitate Affordable Housing (AH) in Louisville Metro is not already overpacked, a very large screwdriver has been added.
Here are the some of the current programs of ‘Community Development Toolkit’ from the 2024 Housing Needs Assessment (HNA) Report list:
Louisville Affordable Housing Trust Fund (LAHTF)
Community Development Block Grant Program
Neighborhood Revitalization Area Designation
Lead-based Paint Hazard Control & Healthy Homes Supplement Grants
HOME Investment Partnerships Program
Louisville Creating Affordable Residences for Economics Success (CARES)
Weatherization Program
Vacant Structures for Sale
Demolition of Dilapidation Structures
Choice Neighborhoods Action & Implementation Grants
Housing Choice Voucher Program
Tax Moratorium
Tax Increment Financing
Louisville and Jefferson County Landbank Authority, Inc.
The report says:
Louisville has about 16,441 affordable assisted housing units in 338 developments. These homes, located throughout Louisville, were developed with assistance from funders and programs like the Low Income Housing Tax Credit Program, Project-Based Section 8, LAHTF, Louisville CARES, and the Kentucky Housing Corporation.
For this fiscal year, “The Mayor’s proposed budget puts forward nearly $32 million to meet the ambitious goal of creating or preserving 15,000 units of affordable housing units across the city by 2027.“
On top of this largess, Mayor Greenberg recently announced the availability of free Accessory Dwelling Unit architectural plans. A competition was held and the designs of the three winners are now offered free to any residents who want to add an “accessory dwelling unit” to their own property. They won’t need to hire an architect.
The new Rental Registry was introduced in April. It is aimed at rental property owners, but was created because of complaints of people living in public housing. Hats off to WHAS TV for reporting this non sequitur.
For the homeless, we have the Community Care Campus, a multi-million development for housing and healthcare in downtown Louisville scheduled for completion in 2026.
And now, Middle Housing is on the move to torpedo middle class homeowners and neighborhoods. It’s a program that goes far beyond zoning changes.
AH is nothing new. It’s a decades-old movement, and at this stage, how can the free market come up with solutions to compete? Private-public partnerships are becoming common, along with raising property taxes.
AN ASIDE: The new Goodwill Industries ‘Opportunity Campus’ in Parkland will help people find AH. Parkland also got city and state funding for a $6.1M modular home factory that will bring 73 new jobs for residents.
Some background about the agenda
As part of his campaign to become Mayor of Louisville, Greenberg stated he would build or preserve 15,000 homes in his first term. If you have followed his media appearances, then you have seen the unfolding narrative of the current Affordable Housing agenda. A centerpiece is Middle Housing, the addition of multi-family dwellings to single-family zoned neighborhoods or anywhere.
Last October, Mayor Greenberg announced the My Louisville Home plan at a news conference, stating, “We need even more housing in every neighborhood across our city.”
Keep in mind that Greenberg took office two years after Biden became President and opened the U.S. borders to millions of illegal immigrants.
As previously reported on Fastzone.substack, Louisville is a 'compassionate' city with policies to accommodate illegal migrants. Our police are not allowed to discover or discuss the presence of undocumented persons. So, are citizens allowed to ask who their new neighbors are? A friend recently shared that her new next-door neighbors speak no English. We can be pretty sure they needed no downpayment.
The purpose of this post is not to disparage our legal migrants but to ask: Do Louisville Metro leaders have the legal right to override small city rules and use tax monies to insert Middle Housing in all neighborhoods?
Code Reform?
In a LouisvilleMetroTV video, Middle Housing is explained by Joel Dock, Metro’s Planning Supervisor for Economic Development. He also describes the zoning plan for the city and notes, “The land development code reform began during the height of the social and racial justice movement here in Louisville in the summer of 2020.” That would be the Breonna Taylor connection to Middle Housing. -ed.
The Land Development Code Reform includes: Middle Housing, modular and factory built housing, and EZ-1 Zoning which comprises industrial uses near residential neighborhoods.
There is a lengthy history of Louisville’s Land Development Code that was introduced in 2018. Plan 2040 sets the rules by which all development occurs, and states that any amendments must be closely aligned with the goals and policies of the plan. Will these rules override your small city regulations? That is likely.
“Safe, quality, affordable housing is the foundation for families. It’s the foundation for everything else that we do in life. A foundation that so many of us take for granted, but far too many of us cannot afford” is the mantra of Mayor Greenberg.
Safe-quality-affordable — family. Alas, how the definitions have changed over the years. Changing the meaning of words diminishes understanding and increases frustrations. Often, affordable means free, but that is not possible.