Innovative Housing Strategies & Data-Driven Decisions: Pursue innovative housing strategies to maximize the creation and preservation of affordable housing; use data and research to guide and evaluate housing priorities, policies, and programs.
THIS POLICY SUPPORTS GOALS:
THIS POLICY RELATES TO TOPICS:
THIS POLICY RELATES TO IMPLEMENTATIONS:
In recent years the City of Minneapolis has annually provided $10 million to aid in the production and preservation of affordable housing units. These City resources, coupled with state and federal resources, have not been enough to meet the minimum established housing goals set by the Metropolitan Council, the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for seven counties in the Twin Cities metro, nor are they enough to meet the true demand for affordable housing in Minneapolis. More must be done. The City needs new and innovative strategies to successfully meet the Allocation of Affordable Housing Need goals set by the Metropolitan Council, as well as the affordable housing development and preservation goals of this comprehensive plan.
Access to data and the tools, staff, and resources needed to analyze that data to inform priorities, policies, and programs is paramount to achieving success in Minneapolis’ housing work. The City has access to companies and organizations, such as the University of Minnesota and others, that are conducting research in housing policy and programs, as well as harnessing new and existing data sets in innovative ways to better inform, evaluate, and understand existing conditions.
ACTION STEPS
The City will seek to accomplish the following action steps to pursue innovative housing strategies to maximize the creation and preservation of affordable housing; use data and research to guide and evaluate housing priorities, policies, and programs.
- Explore new strategies and tools to create and preserve affordable housing throughout the city, such as inclusionary zoning and naturally occurring affordable housing (NOAH) preservation.
- Continue to explore opportunities to expand and maximize local, regional, state, and federal affordable housing resources, partnerships, and tools.
- Engage in regional dialogue and collaboration to expand affordable housing resources and tools.
- Conduct and refresh housing market and needs analyses by real estate analysts on a regular basis. Use this information to establish programs and set priorities and targets geographically.
- Examine and review data to understand how areas of the city change and how that will affect public policy, including data such as the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) healthy neighborhood indicators, rates of tax delinquency and foreclosure, building permit activity, vacant property lists, sales prices, and ownership tenure.
- Maintain a local affordable housing database as a tool for studying trends over time in the development of affordable and mixed-income housing projects.
- Incorporate community engagement in housing research and data analysis.
- Develop competitive selection criteria to prioritize the greatest needs in the allocation of affordable housing resources, expanding housing choice and preventing housing displacement throughout the city.
- Coordinate with the Results Minneapolis team to create a methodology for measuring the success of the 2040 Plan. Establish measurable goals for equity and affordable housing and report annually.
- Establish specific affordable housing goals for all neighborhoods.
- Prioritize data driven narratives in policy making.