Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series based on the recently completed countywide housing study in Richland County.
Coming Monday: What are the key action steps moving forward to improve housing in Richland County? What can local leaders learn from Lima, Zanesville, Wooster, Ashland and Allen County, Indiana?
MANSFIELD — Jessica Gribben looked across a conference room of Richland County leaders on Friday afternoon — all of whom gathered to hear the highlights of a long-anticipated countywide housing study.
Her message, and that of other leaders, was clear. The information from the study is important. But what happens next is even more crucial.
“You’ve been in focus groups, you’ve been in strategy sessions, you’ve reached out and said, ‘Hey, what about this? How can we think about this differently?’ ” said Gribben, a leader on the housing study steering committee.
“So thank you to all of you. But that is what makes this community special and it’s why I know that we will move the needle on this. It’s not the end today, it’s just the end of the beginning — and also the beginning of all the work.
“By you putting your name on the RSVP list to be here today, you have signed up for that work,” said Gribben, economic development manager to the City of Shelby and northern Richland County for Richland Area Chamber & Economic Development.
Local residents clearly defined housing as a critical issue in their minds during Richland Source meetings to form the latest Citizens’ Agenda at the beginning of 2022.
“Housing – that’s where the school system and the city intersect. You can’t bring new people into the school district without housing. We need very intentional housing development. There are built houses all through this area that are very nice. It would be nice for council people to drive through and see what some of that actually looks like,” one Mansfield resident told Richland Source during a series of six meetings in each of the city’s wards.
“Affordable housing in Mansfield is a real magnet (being between Cleveland and Columbus). Young families are moving because they can work from home, remotely, and buy a home here. I think it’s a real opportunity. And it’s a good place to raise kids,” said another resident.
The 90-minute meeting Friday, at the District 5 Ohio Area on Agency, assembled stakeholders from around the county — elected officials, agency heads and business and industry leaders.
Public and private investment paid for the $100,000 study, coordinated by the Richland County Regional Planning Commission, the first ever countywide housing examination.
Planning for it began in fall of 2021, an effort that included funding from Richland County commissioners, the City of Mansfield, Ontario, Shelby, Lexington and Bellville.
Work began in earnest in April 2022, led by a consulting company, Community Science, and its project director Michael Webb, a Lima native who earned a doctorate degree in geography at The Ohio State University.
Webb met with steering committee members and stakeholders and launched a survey that looked at baseline housing numbers, housing inventory data, a market analysis and a housing needs assessment.
Webb worked with local leaders to then develop potential action plans to help Richland County improve its current housing situation and build a framework to meet future needs.
He spent the first part of his presentation going over materials previously discussed at stakeholder sessions.
“Then we’ll get to really exciting stuff, which is looking at some ways that you can work together and collaborate both within your own communities and across communities to seek to address those housing needs,” Webb said.
“This is the really attractive stuff, I think, of the whole project — the really big, exciting part.”
The study looked at affordable (lower-income housing), attainable housing (re: middle class) and market-rate housing (more than $200,000 in this market), according to Webb.
He said the study was unique in that it looked at the county as a whole, but also drilled down into smaller “nodes,” involving cities, villages, urban townships and rural townships.
In his overview of the broader study, Webb offered five interesting numbers from the housing inventory:
— 67 percent of Richland County residents own their own homes. Highest ownership rates are in Ontario and rural townships (79 percent). Lowest rates are found in Mansfield (51 percent) and Shelby (58 percent).
— 21 percent of renters in Richland County are severely cost-burdened, meaning more than 3,000 local renter households pay more than 50 percent of their income toward rent and utilities. In addition, 44 percent of readers are cost-burdened, paying more than 30 percent of income toward rent and utilities.
— 2,000 mobile homes are in use in Richland County, primarily in urban and rural townships. There are also a substantial number of mobile homes in Mansfield and Shelby.
— 45 percent of housing units in the county were built before 1960. Rural townships, Mansfield and Shelby have the largest stock of very old housing units (pre-1939). Bellville, Lexington and Ontario have some of the newest housing stocks (more than a third built after 1980).
— 2,438 residential units are vacant in the county, about 4.1 percent of all residential units. This number has declined from the 5.4 percent seen in 2012. Mansfield and Shelby have the largest proportion of vacant units.
Here are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats identified in Richland County housing study, according to project director Michael Webb.
Strengths:
— Community pride
— “Amazingly liveable”
— Diversity of communites
— Positive momentum
Weaknesses
— Low-quality affordable housing
— Shrinking attainable housing market
— Lack of contractors and developers
— Bureaucracy of permitting/codes
Opportunities
— Existing community investments
— Economic development pipeline
— Intel spillovers
— Available land
Threats
— Need to seize the moment
— Creative thinking and dynamic leadership
— Competition with surrounding counties
Webb said Richland County and its communities have positive momentum.
“This is the exciting part. As I mentioned before, in some of my presentations, I’ve done housing studies for shrinking cities and they are very depressing,” he said.
“This is not a depressing housing study, which is very exciting. You’ve got a lot of momentum both in terms of the economic development pipeline that’s already here and also from spillovers from the Intel facility and other things that are going on, both in Cleveland and in Columbus,” he said.
The project director didn’t mince words, however, in pointing out the county’s shortcomings.
“You do have weaknesses, though. No place is perfect. A lot of the affordable housing in the community is in need of some serious repair. We’ve got a lot of older homes, they’ve got maintenance issues. It’s very tough to bring those up to a livable habitable standard.
“You have a very shrinking attainable housing market. So those starter homes, the ones that are priced under $200,000, you’ve got a shrinking market there. And this is true for every place right now,” Webb said.
“You have a lack of contractors and developers. Not a lot has been developed in the community in the last 10, 20 years. And those contractors and those developers have gone to hotter housing markets to develop where they can build things,” he said.
Part of the reason developers have looked elsewhere is other communities have made the building process easier, Webb said, pointing out there are more than 12 different zoning codes across Richland County.
“Every jurisdiction has different zoning rules. I know this because I’ve read all of your zoning codes. You’ve got more than a dozen different zoning codes. Each has its own district. Each has its own setback. Each has its own minimum lot sizes. Each has its own minimum frontages,” Webb said.
“The specific challenges here … even within communities, your zoning is very complex because these rules get passed and then you keep adding to it.
“It’s like a rock rolling down a hill and just keep picking up moss and it gets very complicated. What I’ve heard from talking to folks is that you realize it’s complicated,” Webb said, also pointing to weaknesses in code and permits areas. “Your codes and permitting are seen as very slow and very bureaucratic.
“You have opportunities though, and these are very closely related to the strengths. So in terms of your existing investments, positive momentum from the economic development spillovers, you’ve got a lot of available land.
“So you’ve got to seize the moment. I mean you’ve got all these opportunities in front of you, but what’s really key is how are you going to take advantage of those opportunities?” Webb asked.
