Summit County presents housing authority strategic plan and interactive land‑prioritization map

Summit County staff on Sept. 24 presented a draft Housing Authority strategic plan and a new land‑prioritization map intended to help the county identify sites for affordable housing and neighborhood planning.

The draft Housing Authority strategic plan tracks objectives in the county’s broader Strategic Plan 2035 and lists programs the authority plans to pursue, including locally funded housing vouchers, a down‑payment assistance program, incentives for deed‑restricted accessory dwelling units and programs to purchase and deed‑restrict existing units. It also identifies partnerships with developers and nonprofits and coordination with community development on code amendments.

Peter Barnes, planning staff, said the county’s Strategic Plan 2035 sets a 10‑year goal of 1,500 new housing units (excluding specific large projects named in the plan). Barnes presented the Housing Authority draft as the body’s implementation plan and noted several programs that the housing authority plans to pursue.

The demonstration of the land‑prioritization map was led by planning staff and Summit County GIS specialist Trey Olson. The tool is built with ArcGIS Pro and ArcGIS Online and currently filters public and quasi‑public parcels (county, municipal, state, federal, school district and partner‑owned land such as recreation districts and water/sewer districts). The map can be toggled between an “unweighted” mode (all factors equal) and a “weighted” mode in which users set the relative importance of elements such as distance to grocery stores, schools, health care, transit stops, sewer and water connections and employment hubs. The pop‑up for a selected parcel shows owner, acreage, zoning and calculated walk/bike/drive times to the amenities included in the model.

Trey Olson is building a custom widget so council members and staff can adjust weights without needing code changes. Staff said the widget is in development and that a pilot adjustable interface is expected within about a month. The county will later add a filter for “underdeveloped” land (based on assessed land value relative to building value) and a layer that shows water‑service connections as that data becomes available.

Council members responded with questions on public access, prioritization and next steps. Council Member Megan Hart said the map could be a valuable planning tool and asked whether the county intended a public‑facing dashboard. Barnes and Olson said they were open to a public interface but cautioned that publishing detailed parcel scores could affect perceptions of specific properties. Several council members (including Candace and others on the Housing Authority) said they wanted the ability to run the map privately to test weighting scenarios and also to offer a simplified public view that communicates planning activity rather than parcel rankings.

Council members pressed staff on sequencing between mapping, the Housing Authority work and code changes. Peter Barnes and other staff emphasized that some zoning and code amendments will be necessary for many of the housing types envisioned (so‑called “missing middle” housing). Barnes told councilors that changing development codes is time‑consuming and requires public outreach and Planning Commission hearings; staff recommended using the map to identify candidate areas and then crafting targeted code changes or overlay zones for those sites rather than broad county‑wide rezones.

Barnes and others reiterated that the map and the Housing Authority plan are intended to be iterative. Staff asked council members to send prioritization preferences (for weighting categories) and said they would circulate a link to the current map for council review.

The Housing Authority and planning staff asked councilors whether to prioritize code cleanup work tied to strategy 4.2 (to resolve discrepancies in development codes that inhibit housing diversity) and several council members said they supported prioritizing code clarity but cautioned that code changes must be targeted and public‑facing outreach would be necessary before broad rezones.

Staff said the Housing Authority strategic plan remains a draft and requested specific direction from council on which goals or strategies to prioritize at the council retreat.

Ending: Staff will circulate the beta map link and requested council members send weighting preferences. A custom widget for public and private views is expected within a month; staff will return with map refinements and the Housing Authority plan for additional direction at an upcoming council work session and the council’s retreat.