The housing study results weren't a big surprise, but it does give the city concrete data to begin strategies. And city council begins non-voluntary annexation procedures this month.
In this week’s installment of Ask The Mayor, Columbus Mayor Mary Ferdon addresses these issues and more during a visit to Columbus City Hall. Listen to the full conversation with Indiana Newsdesk anchor Joe Hren by clicking on the play button above, or read some of the questions and answers below. A portion of this segment airs 6:45 and 8:45 a.m. Wednesday on WFIU. Here are some highlights.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
Hren: I think you're starting to get data from some of those studies that were commissioned earlier this year, in particular the Housing Study and Needs Assessment. What did it find? Any surprises?
Ferdon: To be perfectly honest, we understood that we do need housing, and that we knew we need housing across the board. Obviously, we need low income and affordable housing, but we also need kind of middle income and workforce housing, and even some at the higher end, because it's a spectrum. As people move and they make a little bit more money and they want to move up and buy a house is a little bit larger as their family grows.
I didn't realize that we needed as much housing as we did. They were estimating we needed about 300 units a year for the next couple number of years. We have good demographic data, and so now we're trying to kind of parse the different strategies and figure out what we want to prioritize.
And then how we approach developers and look at grant dollars, and you look at TIF dollars. It's real data that you can make decisions with. Yeah, we'll be pulling together a housing team in the near future.
Hren: We're in an election year. We won't know until at least November who will be in office. What would you like to see in a federal bill to help cities such as Columbus in housing?
Ferdon: I think, more than anything, it's just kind of the understanding from both the state and the federal level that Columbus is short as well as the entire country, and so, what can we do to to make a difference.
I also get concerned, because I know with the hurricane going through the southeast, you know that takes a big draw on construction materials, so many homes and businesses and buildings have to be rebuilt. So I think we'll anticipate construction costs and materials going up over the next couple of years. So it's always a push and a pull, right? And so I think just understanding that whatever we can do to remove barriers that help us find people housing would be helpful.
Pushing City Limits: Bloomington Annexation Coverage
Hren: I do understand the Columbus Plan Commission voted unanimously a little while back to forward a favorable recommendation to city council to annex about 100 acres in Columbus to be used for future development. Where is that and where is that right now?
Ferdon: So that'll go to city council in October for a vote. They've all been updated with it, and so they've had the opportunity to talk with the petitioners, as well as the the property owners who who aren't supportive of the annexation. So it's kind of up in the air, to be honest, it's city council members understand that our need to grow, and unfortunately, the best way to do that is through annexation, but it's an involuntary annexation, and those don't happen very easily, so stay tuned for that one.
Hren: Is that land developed, or is it undeveloped?
Ferdon: It's undeveloped at this point in time. Many people still want the single family home, and so we just don't have property within the current city limits to provide those. So if we want to provide more single family homes, we have to physically annex more property in order to do that.
Hren: Does the city allow the water sewer to go to non-annexed areas, as in county residents on city limits?
Ferdon: We typically do, yes in different agreements.
Hren: I assume you're talking about the petitioners waivers. You might have a waiver to those users that they can't protest annexation if they receive the water and sewer?
Ferdon: I don't know that we've had that waiver. It may have existed in the past. I'm currently not aware of that.
Hren: Do you have any updates on the riverfront project?
Ferdon: Coincidentally, this morning, we had a pre bid meeting for contractors. We're re-releasing the bid for the riverfront this fall, hoping to get a more favorable bid amounts. It involves many, many different pieces. So again, in November, we should have a good feel on where that's going. Unfortunately that's been hit by continuous construction increases in cost over the past seven years.
It took us five or six years just to get all the permitting done that we needed through the state of Indiana and the Army Corps of Engineers, which is extremely frustrating for any community, because we believe we could have had all the improvements that we needed for safety as well as entertainment amenities done years ago. And so it's just really almost doubled the cost. But we are continuing to move forward.
Hren: Weeks ago, I saw a report from The Republic, about the sports complex NexusPark being behind projections. So how much funding is NexusPark falling behind? And where is it now?
Ferdon: When we made projections for the 2024 budget season, which was last July, right? So it's probably about 15 months ago, we were still basing it hoping to be open January 1, which we had some construction delays, so we didn't really open until April. So that really affected our revenue for this year.
But since that actual report that was in the Republic, I think we've added $80 to $90,000 worth of revenue this year already, just in September, and we've got tournaments booked solid from mid October through mid April, so our numbers are picking up. I'm not quite sure how we're going to handle all the athletes in town. So we're really excited, and we believe that by the end of 2025, we'll be on the track that we wanted to. Also, we were getting help from a contractual company to help us learn how to schedule, and we're backing off on that contract. So 2025, should look much better than it might have six months ago.
We did schedule a subsidy for '24. We reduced that subsidy in 2025 and hope to not have to use all of it, or even some of it.
