Columbus staff outline CRA expansion, affordability rule changes and program outcomes

City of Columbus housing staff briefed the Housing Council on program changes that expanded the geographic reach of the Columbus Housing CRA and revised affordability requirements, and presented year-end 2024 program outcomes showing modest affordable-unit production and cumulative fee-in-lieu receipts.

Jeremy Heater Druitt, development program manager for the residential tax-incentive program, told the council that city legislation in December 2023, which staff said took effect Jan. 10, 2024, dissolved most legacy community-reinvestment-area (CRA) boundaries and replaced them with a single Columbus Housing CRA. He said the expanded CRA now covers roughly 85% of city parcels and retains a three-tier affordability framework based on census-tract designations: market-ready, ready-for-revitalization and ready-for-opportunity. A small number of legacy CRAs and certain economic-development areas such as active TIF districts were intentionally exempted.

Druitt summarized affordability rules first adopted in 2018 and revised in 2022. Under the 2022 adjustments for rental projects, staff said options now include a deeper-affordability path (10% of units at or below 60% area median income and 10% at or below 80% AMI) or a wider-affordability path (30% of units at or below 80% AMI). For owner-occupied home-ownership products in market-ready and ready-for-revitalization areas, owners must be at or below 120% AMI and housing expenses cannot exceed 35% of income to qualify for abatement. Ready-for-opportunity areas were described as having lower affordability thresholds, including a rental option of 10% at 80% AMI and 10% at or below 100% AMI; ready-for-opportunity was exempt from the owner-occupied home-ownership requirement.

The fee-in-lieu option, available for certain rental projects, was revised in 2022 so payments go directly to the city housing fund rather than to a community development corporation. Druitt said some fee-in-lieu payments have been received but none of that money has yet been spent. Staff reported a cumulative fee-in-lieu total of about $1.1 million since the program's affordability requirements took effect in 2018.

On program outcomes at year-end 2024, Druitt said the program was monitoring about 220 units at or below 60% AMI, about 518 units at or below 80% AMI and about 221 units at or below 100% AMI; staff also counted 629 units produced under Low-Income Housing Tax Credit projects that are fully affordable and must average 60% AMI across units. Druitt reported that approximately 1.5% of city parcels are currently receiving abatements; the combined appraised value of abated properties was reported as about $11.8 billion, with a payment value of about $97 million. He said the first home-ownership product under the 120% AMI rule was approved by staff at the meeting.

Druitt said the program is required to undergo a triennial review and that the next review is due by July 31 this year; staff said that review could result in no changes or in refinements to tiers and requirements. He also described a single-family pilot for projects of 100 or more owner-occupied structures that, subject to a waiver process, could proceed by offering 30% of units at or below 120% AMI; staff have offered one waiver so far but had not approved any applications at the time of the meeting.

Ending: Council members asked to be kept informed about the fee-in-lieu working group and any outcomes from the upcoming triennial review. Staff agreed to identify working-group members and to report back to the council on recommended uses of the fee-in-lieu funds.