Housing

Tim Fulton 00:13Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. We are a weekly Columbus-centric podcast focusing on the civics, lifestyle, entertainment, and people of our city. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. This week, as the Assistant Director of Housing Strategies for the City of Columbus, Erin Prosser wakes up every day thinking about housing in our city. In today's episode, we discuss strategies for combating NIMBYism before it takes hold, the importance of non-commercial partners when we think about housing, why housing should be thought of as infrastructure, and how we can right-size our systems in order to align them with our priorities. As a bonus this week, we have an additional conversation with entrepreneur David Hunegnaw about one possible micro solution to density, Lease-A-Lawn. You can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Also, the Confluence Cast is on Patreon. Find out how to support this podcast on our website, theconfluencecast.com, or at patreon.com/confluence. The Confluence Cast is sponsored this week by the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission, or MORPC, featuring stories about local and regional partners that envision and embrace innovative directions in economic prosperity, transportation, sustainability, and an inclusive Central Ohio. MORPC's transformative programming, innovative services, and public policy initiatives are designed to promote and support the vitality and growth in the region. For more information, please visit morpc.org. Enjoy the interview. Sitting down here virtually with the Assistant Director of Housing Strategies for the City of Columbus, Erin Prosser. Erin, how are you?

Erin Prosser 02:07I'm doing well. How are you doing, Tim?

Tim Fulton 02:09I'm doing well. I'm doing well. First of all, Erin, you are the city's first-ever Assistant Director of Housing Strategies. Can you talk through what that role is, and what the vision for it set out by Mayor Ginther?

Erin Prosser 02:23Yes, absolutely. So it was a position that was created last year, really looking at the changes that have been coming and are coming to our region around our population growth and the chronic under-building that's been happening over the last few years. Understanding that we needed to take a comprehensive look at housing across the city departments, across, you know, our jurisdictional partners, really looking at a high, broad level about what it takes to adjust our systems and our ways of doing business to make sure that we are able to adequately accommodate the growth that's coming and build the housing we need to support our population.

Tim Fulton 03:08Okay. And I want to step back and sort of say, why are you in this role? I know you had a previous role with the university, and with MKSK. Can you sort of talk about your background and what you bring to the role?

Erin Prosser 03:26Yes, absolutely. So my original background — I have a master's in city and regional planning, and went into that field really wanting to get into communities and into cities and be part of that growth of where we were seeing folks coming back into cities and into urban spaces. And it was something that seemed really intriguing and exciting to me as a field. And I had the opportunity to start my career actually with Franklin County, in their planning office, and really got the opportunity to spend some time. One of my first projects was out in the Big Darby Accord, working with the townships and suburban communities, as well as Franklin County and the City of Columbus, on a cross-jurisdictional planning effort out there. That was prior to the 2008 housing crisis that we saw. At that point, shifting gears from the county, I was able to go and work with MKSK, which is an urban design and planning firm here in Columbus. We had the opportunity to really work on a lot of different projects and a lot of different communities, focused on a lot of different issues that communities were seeing. It was a really great opportunity to understand the breadth of planning and what the opportunities there were.

Tim Fulton 04:46And just so that folks understand, that's a national firm, and so you're dealing with projects that are all around the country, if not all around the world.

Erin Prosser 04:54Yeah. And, you know, certainly a lot of my work was focused here, but yes, it's a firm that has a footprint — especially now, it's even larger than when I was there. It certainly has a footprint in projects around the country. And it was one that, again, I got that exposure to those different parts of planning and the different opportunities to influence city growth and how communities collectively come together to address some of the issues they're facing. And I had the opportunity to work down in Cincinnati with 3CDC, and really think about the work that they were doing specifically in Over-the-Rhine. And it was an organization that I thought was really compelling, and the opportunity to take planning off the shelf, so to speak, and really practically think about the role of development and how planning could actually enter into the development space, and make an impact in communities through the actual construction and development of projects, and not just in the development of planning documents.

Tim Fulton 05:56Can you give an example of that, and maybe bring in a little bit of your philosophy there? Just, like, what does that mean?

Erin Prosser 06:04Sure. And, you know, certainly as planners, predominantly we're trained mostly in the regulatory space. And for the most part, we will find ourselves working for cities, counties, or other municipalities or jurisdictions as that community voice in those conversations about the physical development of the built environment, right. So that is really where you see things like zoning codes, you see housing regulations, and other components that allow us to sort of shape the built environment for us in our communities. And there was this shift when I was working, thinking about not just reacting to the plans that are brought to the community, but to actually initiate and develop and design some of those projects and bring them into the community in a much more direct way. And that was really what led me then to Ohio State and the opportunity to work with Campus Partners, which was the real estate-based affiliated entity for the Ohio State University. It was looking out into the communities around the university's main campus — the University District, including the Weinland Park neighborhood. And I got the opportunity to shift gears and go over to the university and work on projects on behalf of the university, working with the communities to address some of the needs and issues facing the neighborhood outside the main campus.

Tim Fulton 07:29And you were working as Director of Community Development there. So to be clear, it truly was — your portfolio was the stuff that was outside of the university.

Erin Prosser 07:41Yes. So we focused primarily on the ways in which we — especially thinking about the role of Ohio State as a neighbor, and as a stakeholder in the community — ways in which we could work with the community members and be a positive influence and add projects and elements to the community that would really support making, you know... one of the things I always said to Campus Partners is, being a neighbor of the Ohio State University should be a benefit. And it should be a good part of your life. And so that was really what that opportunity was: to look at the neighborhoods around main campus and identify the needs and figure out how we could interject projects to help support the goals the community had.

Tim Fulton 08:22I want to stick with the university just a little bit. Maybe selfishly, because I grew up there. Can you talk about what you view — that neighborhood, the University District, maybe, you know, North Campus specifically — how that's evolved over time? And what are the contributing factors? First of all, I want to note, this is not just a "what did you do," but much more to have a philosophical understanding of how a neighborhood evolves, like North Campus specifically, and then how the positive influence in Weinland Park has changed that neighborhood.

Erin Prosser 09:04Yeah. And I think what we were really dealing with in the '80s and '90s in a neighborhood like the University District was, we were seeing, especially our student population at Ohio State, choosing not to live in the nearby neighborhoods. They were choosing to live much further away and commute back into the University District to go to class. And, you know, where we had, let's say in the late '80s, early '90s, we were looking at around 15,000 students that lived in the nearby neighborhoods. As we move forward into the '90s, we really saw that precipitously drop into more of the 8,000-to-9,000 student range. It was not a neighborhood of choice that was attractive to students. It certainly wasn't attractive to faculty and staff, and was one where we were seeing that disinvestment, which was not unique to the University District. Certainly around the country, that disinvestment had been happening for a number of decades. It was an important area and an important community. It was a place that could be brought back and be an attractive place to be. It was just a matter of identifying what was keeping those folks from choosing the community. And I think, certainly, as we look back, part of what also coincided with that disinvestment was — I'm going to go down to the south side of the University District, because I think it helps explain some of the other issues in the district. But when you look down in the Weinland Park neighborhood, we had, in the '70s, a portfolio that was being developed through a program under the federal government. And there was a lot of housing in Weinland Park, because it was the original streetcar suburb, where you had housing that by the '70s was really conducive to project-based, at the time, Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. And those units were acquired and put into that project by a group of folks that ultimately created the nation's largest project-based Section 8 portfolio, and at the time it was called the Broad Street portfolio. It was not well managed, the properties were not being invested in. Those property owners were getting revenue off of those buildings but not having to necessarily invest or manage the properties in any meaningful way. And so the folks that could get out of that portfolio, they got out of the Broad Street portfolio, and the folks that were left behind were up to no good, and they were interested in the lackadaisical management of the company. And that, coinciding just nationally with the crack and cocaine epidemic, creates a perfect storm in Weinland Park that leads us to Short North Posse. And you really find a group of folks that coalesce geographically around Weinland Park, and the opportunity to create that, which I think Steven still to this day is the city's largest and most violent gang that we saw. They were largely located within the Weinland Park neighborhood. So that created, again, just not a neighborhood of choice — people were not going to choose to live in that community. And then you saw some of the public safety issues spreading out into the community, and especially into the northern part of the district. And so you start to see a lot of things that we're seeing nationally in cities, but certainly in a microcosm of University Districts. And because of a couple of factors, it certainly became an exacerbated issue for the community. And so there were a lot of folks looking at the issues being faced by the University District, and really looking at how to dismantle and undermine the Short North Posse and their hold on the Weinland Park neighborhood. And there was an opportunity in the early 2000s, through HUD, a project called Mark to Market. And it was really where there had been an assumed increase in value on the properties that were put into these portfolios in the '70s. And by the early 2000s, what we know is that that increase in value wasn't occurring. What we were really seeing was the disinvestment in those communities. And so HUD said, as we have these contracts with 30 years, as they're coming due, we're going to take a look at really where we are in the market for these properties. And that was an opportunity for the university, through Campus Partners, to really engage with a couple of really key folks to say, let's see if we can get these properties into a different type of management — a nonprofit management model, with wraparound services and support for the residents. And that process was initiated in about 2003, with the creation of what is now Community Properties of Ohio. They were able to take possession of the portfolio, they were able to invest pretty significant dollars into the renovation of the units and allow folks to stay in those units in Weinland Park. It still remains today the highest concentration of project-based Section 8 in the city, still located in Weinland Park, because of that preservation of that affordability in the community as part of that Mark to Market shift out of Broad Street and into CPO. And so when you start to stabilize that property and that portfolio, you start to see the desirability of the neighborhood, coinciding with the fact that, certainly, our younger faculty and staff and younger folks and professionals were interested in living in urban neighborhoods. They were interested in lifestyles that involved walking to work. It became sort of a place where it was again a neighborhood of choice, and people were deciding to come into the community. And I think we see that throughout the University District as we get to see some of those improvements, especially on the public safety side. And what we knew, as we started to really deal with the Broad Street portfolio and shift that management, was that we had a finite amount of time to lock down as much affordability as we could in the Weinland Park neighborhood, prior to essentially the market taking over, right, and it really being a neighborhood of choice. And so during that time, we were able to create a fund where we were partnering with the Columbus Foundation and JPMorgan Chase to put together money that we could acquire and lock down affordability in Weinland Park. We had partners like what is now Thrive Companies, which was the Wagenbrenners at the time, and other folks — private, public, philanthropic — all came together, to some degree, to look at the bricks and sticks and how we build in that affordability. But we had great partners like Cardinal Health and the Wexner Medical Center and other folks that came to really think through some of the other issues that the residents were also facing, and how we could create a really comprehensive neighborhood investment plan that could address a lot of the different issues. Now, my particular role in that process was really focused on bricks and sticks. A couple of things I think are really important about the Weinland Park work is that we did build in affordability, and we did add units, as well as preserve, but we did it in a way that was very much focused on high-quality architecture. So as you drive through Weinland Park today, you might not recognize some of the affordable products that we added as being affordable. And that was intentional, right? We weren't looking to create a circumstance where it was very clear what the income of the person who lived behind a particular door was, right. And that was very intentional. I think at times it is seen as a neighborhood that just changed entirely, and that that affordability is completely gone. And it's sort of a victim of our own success at being able to blend those affordable units into the fabric in a way that's not as obvious to folks. And I think that's really where that work in Weinland Park was really the foundation for thinking deeply about housing in general, and thinking about this new role and the opportunity to take that experience and translate it to the bigger city as well.

Tim Fulton 16:57And do you think that philosophy of bringing in housing stock that, as you said, doesn't look like affordable housing — I think that that's twofold. One, that it gives people a sense of pride in the place in which they live, regardless of the circumstances that brought them to that need. Additionally, I would hope that it counters a little bit of the NIMBYism we see, certainly in our suburban areas, of "I don't want affordable housing here, because that will lower the cost of my home," or, frankly, "that will bring in a quote-unquote unwanted element to my community where I live."

Erin Prosser 17:49Yeah, and I think a lot of times our notions about what affordable housing is are rooted in very long-ago types of arrangements of how public housing particularly was done in the '60s and '70s — the ways in which those programs sort of created a bias against, you know, big-A affordable housing, and the opportunity to make sure that there's housing available at price points that, quite frankly, the market just isn't going to deliver. And that's really the distinction. And that's, to me, the primary distinction, right? I mean, the folks that are in these affordable units — our workforce — they are working at restaurants, they are working in our hospitals, they are teaching in our schools, they're aides in our schools. These folks have wages, but they are not enough to afford the market rent because of what new construction costs. And so when we look at the big-A affordable in the development of what we see a lot of around the city, with partners like Homeport, and National Church Residences, and others that are really diving into the big-A affordable, it's really about bringing units online that the market is just not going to deliver, and making sure that those are located throughout the city, so that those opportunities to have that affordability are present in all our neighborhoods. But, you know, certainly in the Weinland Park example, I think you'd be hard pressed to walk the streets and be able to identify what the income is of who's buying which door. And I think that's really where we've come a long way in affordable housing, and where it has changed significantly. And it's not always what people immediately think of, which is sometimes still back in those public housing days, where honestly the system just wasn't fully prepared to bring that housing in a way that was meaningful, and it ended up creating some belief that that is not desirable housing.

Tim Fulton 19:51I want to go back to how you convene those partners in order to create a holistic approach to affordable housing, but maybe that's for another episode. But now, with the City of Columbus, you're tasked with putting together a framework for housing strategy. You're working on that now — correct me if I'm wrong, we have a framework. Tell me about that framework.

Erin Prosser 20:13So the framework — the high-level overarching strategy is that we're going to build the housing infrastructure needed to support our growing region, to ensure that no resident pays more than 30% of their monthly income to live in the neighborhood of their choice. Okay, so there's a lot to unpack there. I think when we talk about affordable housing, I would really like to talk about housing affordability for everyone in our community, right. So the goal is that you are not housing cost-burdened. And the way that we define that is that you do not pay more than 30% of your income for your household expenses. So that would include your mortgage or rent payment, as well as your utilities. What that means is that you have dollars leftover to maintain reliable transportation, to pay for high-quality childcare, to save to buy a house if you're a renter. It allows you that remaining 70% of your income to put good food on the table and healthy food choices. All of those things are reliant on not being housing cost-burdened. And so when we look at this Columbus region, I think there's kind of two truths that are both present that are sometimes challenging to reconcile. And the one is, we do have an impending housing crisis. We are under-building, we are seeing rents going up, we are seeing housing prices go up. We're now the city with the shortest time a house spends on the market in the nation. Then Denver's right behind us, right. And so we are flipping houses quickly, people are choosing to come to this community. That is true. And then the second truth that we have right now in this moment is that we technically have an affordable housing market, right? We are affordable relative to our peer cities. It is still possible to rent a unit, it is still possible to buy a house with a reasonable income and not be housing cost-burdened. We are in this sweet spot. So as we talk about building the housing infrastructure — we want to look at, we're growing, right? We've talked about it, I'm sure everyone's heard a lot of these statistics. But the one that always sticks with me is that in the last decade, 2010 to 2020, we added the equivalent, in the region, of the city of Pickerington every single year. We, on average pre-pandemic, added 20,000 jobs a year. This year, we're on track to add 30,000 jobs. And that does not include Intel. We are adding boatloads of jobs, which is fantastic. If we do not build the housing commensurate with that job creation, we are going to back ourselves into the exact problem that is being dealt with now by Nashville and Austin, and cities like that, where they're trying to dig their way out of the circumstance. And so really, what the mayor's creation of this position was for, was someone to start to take — I think the initial directive was for me to wake up every morning thinking about housing, and thinking about how we right-size all of our systems, right? How do we look across the ways that the city has worked for the last 50, 60, 70 years? We can't rely on those systems to build the housing infrastructure we need in the 2020s, and in the 2030s, and into the 2040s. So we're just going to have to take a look at all these different pieces and parts to make sure that we, the City of Columbus, can accelerate residential construction and bring the units we need into the city of Columbus. And then also spending time with our suburban partners and others in the region, including the business community, to start to talk about how we regionally build the housing infrastructure, right? Because there's just physically not enough room in the city of Columbus to support all the growth. We need our suburban partners to be with us in this conversation.

Tim Fulton 24:04So what are those disparate systems that you referenced that have an impact on housing? I assume zoning, I assume any sort of public aid that's being brought to bear.

Erin Prosser 24:17So we're going to start, in the next couple of months, to revamp our zoning code — the first comprehensive look at the zoning code in 70 years. And you think about the types of policies and priorities we had 70 years ago; they are quite different than where we are today. And so our zoning code needs to reflect the priorities and needs that we have today, which it does not, right.

Tim Fulton 24:41So we hear that a lot. Can you give an example of something that's misaligned?

Erin Prosser 24:48I had the opportunity, before I took the job at the city, to serve as a commissioner on the Historic Resources Commission for the City of Columbus. And we regularly have buildings that I think all of us would really recognize as being really amazing parts of our fabric, and they were built prior to zoning. The zoning code is now in place and has been for quite some time. And we would regularly see folks coming in to bring those buildings back to life and really be part of getting back into the community. And they would be saddled with getting zoning variances, use changes, maybe full-on rezonings, just to make sure that they were compliant. Because the great fabric we have, in the way that we think of zoning — zoning would not create your village today, right? Zoning is fundamentally... yeah, the great places we have wouldn't be created by zoning, right. It is about the separation of uses, which is not something that we value right now, right. We're looking at way more mixed-use projects that are coming online, right, where we're mixing office with residential, or retail on the ground floor of residential, and we're all enjoying those more urban environments. But the zoning code does not allow that to happen. You have to go through a process of permissions and changes in order to facilitate something that feels like it is the fabric that we're looking for. That separation of uses, kind of very specific character development standards, that would be very in line with some of our suburban character, but may not facilitate some of the environments we're looking to do — especially as we grow, and we need to add density, the zoning code is not equipped to deal with that right now.

Tim Fulton 26:40Got it. What else, in terms of what else needs to be looked at in order to have a comprehensive strategy?

Erin Prosser 26:48You know, again, I think there is a lot. One thing about housing is, I don't believe there's a department at the City of Columbus that doesn't at some point influence or impact housing one way or another, right? So we look at how we service utilities, we look at the requirements that we have in our public service department, and how we are really making sure that we can facilitate residential development while keeping and maintaining the other priorities we have. You know, I suppose in my position, I'd like for housing to be the number one priority, but in fact, the city has a number of priorities. And so working with those other departments to make sure that we are putting our regulations and our other funding and our programs in place that can help boost all of our priorities, and not at the expense of one another. But it's going to take that coordination, and really looking across the departments to make sure that we're all right-sizing all of our systems, again, so we are meeting the needs and priorities that we have in this century, as opposed to where we were at last century.

Tim Fulton 27:59Got it. Part of what I picked up on — if no one could tell, I will reveal that you read out, like, this is the city's goal of 30% of income to live in [the neighborhood of your choice]. And what I picked up on is "live in the neighborhood of your choice." There's a philosophy issue there, right? That it's not a default of transit, it falls to like eight other things, right? And I guess I'm curious, from a philosophical standpoint, how do you guarantee that? How do you bring it to bear? And what sort of lens do you need to be looking at individual decisions through?

Erin Prosser 28:44Oh, yes. Part of that inclusivity is really looking back at the way our system really created economically and racially segregated cities. You know, again, talking about the zoning code and other mechanisms — that was the result, right. And in Central Ohio, the region — you know, the study out of the University of Toronto identified us as the second most economically segregated region in the nation, second only to Austin. That economic segregation, we have to be really deliberate about unwinding it. It is not something that will naturally happen. We have to be investing and making sure that we're including all of our residents.

Tim Fulton 29:28And we do want to dumb that down just a little bit for a second, because I think people think of segregation and they're like, it only means one thing. From an economic standpoint, all you're saying is, these are rich neighborhoods, and these are poor neighborhoods, and never the two shall meet.

Erin Prosser 29:43Correct. And that's the circumstance we have as a region. You know, there are 43 separate jurisdictions in Franklin County alone. Those are, in fact, 43 different zoning codes. Those are 43 different development review processes. Those are ways in which 43 different practices of how housing gets built [exist]. And those practices have created wealthier areas and less wealthy areas. And that's where —

Tim Fulton 30:14That's interesting to me. So that's what you would attribute it to — that the standards in one neighborhood are different than the standards in another, and hence you're going to end up with disparate situations. Yes. Okay. Okay, I just never heard that.

Erin Prosser 30:32Yeah, I think the regulatory framework — and again, it is a balance, right. And there is community character that each of our neighborhoods within the city of Columbus have. And that's deeply important to being a great city, and having the character of our different neighborhoods that we have. But understanding how we facilitate the inclusion of everyone into each of those communities, and how that gets done, is really, really important. And we have to be deliberate about folding those folks into our communities, and making sure that our regulations — again, looking at things like the zoning code — make sure that there's a place for everybody in all our communities. And so that is really a lot of work and conversation with our regional partners around that. Where we're looking at our job centers — you know, when we think about including everyone in each of these communities, and folks being able to live in the neighborhood of their choice — you look at some of the other cities around the country, where they may be building units really far out. So where those folks are, then, you know, you're trading your housing cost burden for your transportation cost burden, which falls on the individual family, certainly, but it also falls on us system-wide as we look at additional traffic congestion, right? Each one of those folks who lives further out is going to have to drive more miles on our roads to get to where the opportunities are. So that ability for folks to live near work, or the priority they identify, also affects, just globally, our bigger infrastructure systems, and how they are able to hold all of this population growth. And so that proximity, and the ability to have housing available nearby these opportunity areas, is really important also, just for the broader system.

Tim Fulton 32:26How do you bring the different regional partners together and get sort of a consensus on how things get built in their area — admittedly, an area where they have autonomy in how things get built?

Erin Prosser 32:46And I think it is a big regional conversation. We started it in a really meaningful way with MORPC's regional housing strategy that was completed in '21. That was a strategy that was funded by not only the city of Columbus, but our suburban partners as well. Really all coming together, acknowledging that we need to start to collectively look at where we are as a region and the systems we all have in our individual communities, and how we can start to move the needle. I think the Recovery and Resiliency plan that the city of Columbus completed — I think in December of last year — really called out and acknowledged the fact that we needed to have a regional strategy for just unit construction. And that we would need to have a regional collective conversation about what that production number is and how we can achieve it. As we look at those opportunity areas — you know, I talked earlier about job creation versus housing construction. And if you look back at the last economic cycle, call it 2009 to 2019, you know, post-2008 and pre-pandemic — we were building one house for every two and a half jobs we were bringing into the community region-wide. And that is not sustainable. The sustainable ratio is probably closer to one house for every 1.5 jobs. Considering we do have, obviously, two-income households, but also the population includes folks that are not working, like children and the elderly, and we have some single-family or single-income households. So you really want to be at a 1.5. So when we look at our peer cities, they're closer to that 1.5. Austin built 40,000 units last year. We had a pretty good year last year — the year before it was 12,000 a year — but, you know, Austin's building 40,000, Charlotte's bringing in 25,000. Those units are being constructed that are much more commensurate with their job creation. And when you pull it back even further and really start to look at where we're creating jobs versus where we're constructing houses, you really start to see that distinction widen. And that's where we need — that's the question of not just volume, but proximity to the job centers as well. And making sure that we are looking not just for the big number, but also making sure that we are being thoughtful about where that housing construction happens, and that we're not adding jobs in a way that's really great for the region in a particular area, but not having housing to support those jobs, or having it really far away.

Tim Fulton 35:24Absolutely. What else needs to happen? Obviously, you need to — there's some conversation about incentives for getting housing to be built. I don't think the city wants to be in the job of actually building things, or even subcontracting to build things. What, in addition to those incentives, what else needs to happen in order for us to build more homes?

Erin Prosser 35:55And I think, you know, building more homes — the market is going to bring housing at a certain price point, right. And construction is expensive, it keeps getting more expensive. And that construction has to, you know, for them to get financing to build the building, it needs to have revenue that can offset that debt. So the market's only going to bring housing to a certain level, a certain number of price points, right. Below that, we're going to have to make deliberate public investment in those projects to make sure that we have units that are priced, again, in that workforce housing space, where we've got resources through the federal government through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit. Franklin County has a Magnet Fund, we've got the 2019 housing bond that was passed by the voters, which was used to support those projects and leverage those other funds. And we ended up with about 1,300 of those units constructed with that $50 million, leveraging an additional $300 million in other funding brought to the table by those developers. So we have those 1,300 units that are priced below market in those communities, brought by that $50 million bond, and the success of that and the great work our partners did, and the other jurisdictions that brought funding to the table to bring those units online, created a clear idea that this was a really important tool that we could utilize. Again, going back to the idea of housing as infrastructure: bond packages are typically focused on things like utilities and roadways, and what we traditionally think of as infrastructure. And this shift of really thinking of our housing as being equally important to the livability of our community — and so that bond package in November right now, we're looking at $150 million of it being dedicated, again, to supporting those big-A affordable projects, bringing in those units that the market's not going to naturally provide, and doing it in a deliberate way that we're making a public investment in that particular part of the infrastructure that the market is just not going to bring to us on its own. And so looking at the outcomes that we would get out of that $150 million as well, to bring another round of those units into the community — again, working with our partners like Franklin County, and Ohio Housing Finance Agency, and our opportunities with Low Income Housing Tax Credits. So you bring all of those pieces together, and if we're able to support those projects, we can actually bring these units into the community. And that takes that deliberate public investment that we saw the success of after the $50 million bond.

Tim Fulton 38:34And that's the role of government, right? Is to sort of fill the gaps that the market doesn't provide for itself.

Erin Prosser 38:40Correct. And I think that's, again, looking at our infrastructure — certainly that is a piece that is really critical, and going to be really important as we continue to build out our job creation, because we do need folks to support the community as well, right. And we need to be able to staff our hospitals, we need to be able to have folks that are working for our small businesses and creating the great amenities that we love in our communities. We need those folks to be with us and be able to live in our... you know, the mayor is fond of saying, if you work here, you should be able to live here. And that's regardless of where you are on that income spectrum. That should always be an opportunity available to you in Central Ohio.

Tim Fulton 39:23Erin, I wrap up almost every interview with two questions. One, what do you think Columbus is doing really well? And two, what do you think Columbus is not doing so well? I love it when it falls a little bit outside your normal purview, but you can answer from within it. So first of all, what do you think Columbus is doing really well?

Erin Prosser 39:49I think — I mean, when you look at our peer cities, and the fact that in this new position I've had the opportunity to really talk to people about housing, and how engaged, just generally, people in Central Ohio are around this question. And really thinking deeply about how we do this right, and wanting to be the city that gets it right. I look around the nation, and there are pieces and parts, and folks have done individual different things that have moved the needle, but to comprehensively shift the thinking of how we build a city, and how we become a place that continues to be livable, affordable, and competitive — that, being thoughtful at this point, is not something you see in other communities. And it's across leadership, and it's down to folks that I am running into that don't live and breathe this every day. Everyone seems to be thinking about it, and having really important conversations, so that we have the chance to not have to dig ourselves out of the hole, right. We're in a position where we could actually start to see real change that keeps us affordable, livable, and competitive, and build this growing city. And so I think we are collectively all really interested in achieving that. We may differ on the methods, but I think collectively, we're very interested in achieving a really inclusive, equitable city.

Tim Fulton 41:25And what do we not do so well?

Erin Prosser 41:29I think, at times, we think of this growth, and we talk about a housing crisis, right, and we talk about what's coming with that. I would like to see us talk more about the opportunities that it also brings. We think about the ability to build a robust transit system, we think about the opportunities for small business, and growth, and entrepreneurship. Having all these new neighbors and new residents in our community is bringing all of that to us, right? Where, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that wasn't who Columbus was. And we are going to be different, we are going to change, we are going to be a city that doesn't look like we did in 1990, or even the year 2000. But there's a huge amount of opportunity we get out of this growth and density and bringing new neighbors in, that, you know, if we could think more in terms of how to maximize our opportunities while mitigating the impacts that we think are coming... I think if we can have a balanced conversation — I mean, I'm excited about the stuff we're going to be able to have in this community that really we haven't had the population to warrant. And you think of efforts with Lean Glass, you think about all the other ways in which we're starting to really move into a different type of city. I think that's the opportunity for me, and I think it's really exciting. And, you know, there's going to be growing pains, and there's going to be challenges. And we're going to have to be really thoughtful about the impacts. But also we just want to be really excited about what we have coming to us as we have a greater population and we can sustain some of those bigger systems that I know we're all interested in. So I think being hopeful, and seeing it as an opportunity — I'd like to put that out there.

Tim Fulton 43:25Absolutely. Erin, thank you for your time.

Erin Prosser 43:28No problem. I'm sure there's a boatload of other topics around housing that we can cover, and probably will cover.

Tim Fulton 43:35Absolutely, I hope so. Sitting down here virtually with local entrepreneur David Hunegnaw. Dave, how are you? Hello, Tim. It's good to see you.

David Hunegnaw 43:50Yeah, it's great to see you too. And thank you for this opportunity. I'm excited.

Tim Fulton 43:55Absolutely. Absolutely. Before we talk about your recent endeavor, can you give us a little bit of background? How did you come to be an entrepreneur?

David Hunegnaw 44:05Oh, sure. You know, I've been in the Columbus startup community for about 20, 21 years now. I've, as you know, been in and out of a number of startups. My first one was actually a job board 20 years ago. And when some of the big job boards, like Monster and CareerBuilder and HotJobs — I don't know if you remember those brands from way back when — but when they started disrupting the way companies recruited candidates, I thought, what a great opportunity for us to be a part of that disruption. And so we came up with the name, and we came up with this idea for a job board. And actually, it was one of our interns that came up with the actual focus for our job board. And what she said was, instead of focusing on full-time jobs, like some of the big job boards, she said, what if we focus on part-time job opportunities for high school and college students? And that just blew my mind. And I thought, well, why not, you know, why not go down that path? So rather than competing directly with Monster and CareerBuilder and some of these other incredibly well-funded job boards, that's what we did. We focused on part-time and hourly jobs for high school and college students. And pretty quickly scaled nationally. We had — if you can imagine, every single mall retailer, like Macy's and Sears and JCPenney, to every single fast food chain, using our platform, again, all around the country. And we were able to scale that business. And after about five or six years of being in that business, we received an unsolicited offer from a publicly traded company. So we sold that business. And that really gave us the financial runway to pursue some other opportunities. And so, with Rich Langdale, local venture capitalist — Rich and I and John Myers — we started DoMedia, which is the largest platform for buyers and sellers of out-of-home advertising. Worked on another project called Byline, which is one of the largest platforms for buyers and sellers of user-generated content. And also started working — I was actually one of the founding partners of Wild Capital, which is a venture capital firm here in Columbus. So the one that we've, as a company, invested in about 75, maybe 80 startups. Some of the local favorites — Hot Chicken Takeover, we were the first investors; Hyperion Motors, which is a hydrogen-powered supercar and technology company. And then, yeah, the latest and most exciting is Lease-A-Lawn, so excited about it.

Tim Fulton 47:01And that's why you're here today. And there's been a whole lot of discussion, certainly on the podcast and in media in general, around housing. And this is a solution that this startup is endeavoring to address — some concerns. So give us, as they say, give us the elevator pitch, and dive a little deeper.

David Hunegnaw 47:25Sure. Love to. And just to give you a little bit of background: so my wife and I live in Italian Village, in the Short North area. And, you know, in the Short North and Italian Village area, a lot of the homes are, call it, 75-plus years old. And a lot of them, as a result, don't even have garages — we have alley access, but we don't have garages. And about two years ago, my neighbor across the street — she actually works with the city — she built a garage and an ADU, which stands for accessory dwelling unit, but I think the general population just calls it a carriage house. But anyway, she created a carriage house and garage in her backyard. And it's awesome. And so I took a look at it, and I thought, I want one of those. I want one of those too. Because my wife and I, we don't have a garage. And so the thought of creating the garage, but then also monetizing it through the construction of a carriage house on top of it — that got pretty exciting pretty fast. And so what I did was started looking at, you know, the various models — how do I finance a carriage home? And then during that research, I found that in some of the major markets on the West Coast — so LA, Portland, Seattle — those markets, these are common, and you see them quite a bit. In LA they call them granny flats, actually.

Tim Fulton 49:01Okay. I think of them as Mike Seaver suites, but probably a little bit too much of a throwback of a reference.

David Hunegnaw 49:09That is a great reference. I love that. But so, yeah, so we found that this is actually quite common — this type of construction, or this type of real estate, is quite common — and thought, how do we build a program around this, right? And, you know, again, I've been an entrepreneur for 20 years. So the entrepreneur in me thought immediately, if I'm going to architect, design, engineer, and ultimately build one in my backyard, how do I build 100 of these? And so that's how we started to go down this path of, okay, how do we do this at scale? And so that's where we are today. That's how we came up with the idea for Lease-A-Lawn. And really, the value — what we're trying to do is we're trying to provide value to three separate cohorts, right. So you've got the homeowner. And, you know, when you think about the typical, pioneering, first-time homeowner in Italian Village, or Merion Village, or the Near East Side, that doesn't have a garage, chances are that first-time homebuyer, that pioneering homeowner, may not have the financial resources to build a garage and an ADU. So what we do is we have a program where we can actually build for free. The reason we do that, or the way we can do that, is we say to that pioneering homeowner, we need to monetize that ADU for 10 years. And if after 10 years we can monetize it, then our financial model will allow us to give that structure, that ADU and that garage, back to the homeowner. All right, so the value there is, the homeowner is increasing their property value significantly, in many cases 30 to 40%, with the addition of a garage and that rentable real estate. So that's the first cohort. The second cohort is the actual neighborhood, right. So the more of these homes that we build, these ADUs that we build, the more density we create. And the more density we create, the more safety and security that we create — because now we have people living in these back alleys, and they're well lit. And, again, the more density you have, the more walkable these communities become, and then the safer they become as a result. So the final cohort is actually the city. You know, the city — as you've talked about quite a bit on your podcast, affordable housing is a real issue. And what we're doing is we're saying, hey, we can go in, we can build these things, these ADUs, economically and at scale. And now, as a result, we're increasing property values. And when we increase property values, that increases — what's the best way to say this — the tax base for the community.

Tim Fulton 52:13True, true. And so you are doing, functionally in my mind, two things, right. You're offering a turnkey solution for "here's how to get this garage slash carriage house onto your property." And you're also offering an alternative financing option for paying for it, right? Correct. And theoretically, the homeowner would have control over the garage space. Correct. And you guys would be, let's say, the property managers of the additional living space that would exist above it.

David Hunegnaw 52:52Correct. You're absolutely right. So the homeowner — the key benefit for them, again, they've got a garage now that they didn't have before, that ADU or that carriage home. Again, we would manage that. So the homeowner would never have to worry about issues, you know, with renting an apartment. They wouldn't have to — these potential renters, we do all the vetting, we do all the maintenance, everything is covered by Lease-A-Lawn.

Tim Fulton 53:27And then additionally, after the 10 years, you've improved the property value theoretically of that property. Because after the 10-year agreement, it just goes back to the homeowner, correct? Yes, exactly. Got it. And so where are you in the process of standing up and making it happen?

David Hunegnaw 53:46Sure. Great question. So we're in talks with about 10 to 12 property owners right now, homeowners. And our goal is this year we're going to build 10. Great. Yeah, we're pretty excited too. And so we've got some really interesting opportunities on the Near East Side, here in Italian Village. I hope my house is one of the 10 — we'll find out. I hope I qualify. But yeah, so we want to have 10 booked before the end of the year, and 2023. So, how do we do that? You know, we've got relationships now with not only the city, but also a variety of construction companies. We've got a local, gosh, supplier of all of the things that would go into an apartment, right — the flooring, the windows, the garage doors, the kitchen cabinetry, all of those things. We've spent the last year, year and a half establishing all of those partnerships necessary for us to scale.

Tim Fulton 54:51And you guys are open to talking to potential, let's call them clients or partners now?

David Hunegnaw 54:58Oh yes, absolutely. As a matter of fact, on our website we have application forms for not only the homeowner, but also for the potential renter. And, you know, we've even — we tried to be very thoughtful around what's the process, and how do we communicate that process to the homeowner in a way that gives them comfort, right. So when you go to the website, you'll see there's Lease-A-Lawn for the renter, there's Lease-A-Lawn for the homeowner, there's Lease-A-Lawn for the community. And for the homeowner specifically, some of the things that we do is we walk them through what to expect, right. So first things first, we ask the question, are you a homeowner, right, and not a renter? That's first and foremost, most important. But do you have alley access? Because if you don't have alley access, this may not be a good fit. Are you in a densely populated community like Italian Village, like the Near East Side? And then if you check those boxes, then we can go to the next step. And so, the next step is we actually do a site visit. And after that site visit, then we say, okay, if you pass that step, the next step would be to do site surveys. And that's when we start to invest, because now we have a surveyor go out to the property, check all of the services that that ADU would need. So sewer, electric, water, gas — you know, we want to make sure that we can actually bring all of those services to that site. Again, if we pass that test, then we sit down and we do a gut check. You know, here's the floor plan, here's what it's going to look like in your backyard, we have some 3D renderings and some elevations that we show. And again, that's the gut check for the homeowner. Okay, all right, are we going to do this? Because, you know, there will be some inconvenience — the backyard will be muddy for a couple of months. But it's for, you know, that short-term dealing with the dirt and the dust, there's a significant upside. So after that step, that gut check, that's when we break ground. And usually it takes about 90 days.

Tim Fulton 57:31Got it. Got it. Pretty straightforward. Yeah. And it does sound like an innovative solution, bringing together the different stakeholders and the resources in order to make it happen. That's what's pretty exciting.

David Hunegnaw 57:47The one thing that excites me the most about this project — I live, as I mentioned a couple times, in Italian Village and Short North. And when you think about the traditional development of a community, you again — I used this term a little earlier, but it usually starts with that pioneering group of homeowners, right, that will start to see opportunity, in, like, call it Southern Orchards, right? It's been happening there for five or six years now. And what happens is, at least in my experience, those pioneering homeowners, they do see value over the long term. But what happens is larger development firms typically enter those markets and extract the real value, you know, by building five- and seven-story apartments and rentals. And I think what we're doing — the reason, again, I'm so excited — is we're giving that value back to that pioneering homeowner in a real, meaningful way.

Tim Fulton 58:48Yeah, that's interesting. Well, Dave, thank you so much for your time.

David Hunegnaw 58:52Okay, thank you.

Tim Fulton 59:06Thank you for listening to the Confluence Cast, presented by Columbus Underground. Again, you can get more information on what we discussed today in the show notes for this episode at theconfluencecast.com. Please rate, subscribe, share this episode of the Confluence Cast with your friends, family, contacts, enemies, your favorite planner. If you're interested in sponsoring the Confluence Cast, get in touch with us. We can be reached by email at info@theconfluencecast.com. Our theme music was composed by Benji Robinson. Our producer is Philip Cogley. I'm your host, Tim Fulton. Have a great week.