Document Library
Document Library
This page introduces the suite of documents and resources produced during Regional Housing Study planning process. Materials include overall policy context, regional and county-by-county analyses, and general reference tools.
This study is funded by Lilly Endowment Inc through a Giving Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) VIII grant which is being administered by MACOG with support from the South Bend Elkhart Regional Partnership (SBERP).
Housing 101: Reference for housing-related terms and concepts organized like an illustrated glossary.
Baseline Initiatives: Literature review of recent housing-related plans and studies across the region.
Housing Needs Assessments: Detailed analysis of housing need, supply, and demand for each county and the region overall.
Housing Strategy Toolkit: Recommended policy tools and strategies to promote more housing production and affordability.
Implementation Plan and Performance Metrics: Action plan to execute the housing strategy and measure progress toward regional goals.
Public survey: A chance for communitymembers to contribute their voice and experiences to the planning process.
The Housing 101 resource defines typical housing market and policy terms to help ensure the community is speaking in common terms about the issues, challenges, opportunites, and strategies pertaining to this housing study and across the housing discourse in general. The glossary includes the following terms and concepts:
The following goals and priorities were shared across the range of plans, studies, and reports reviewed during this process:
Each County-specific Housing Needs Assessment is available in both online dashboard and downloadable pdf report format using the buttons below.
Informed by analysis, best practices, and conversations with dozens of stakeholders, the plan's strategies and tools can help streamline housing production and foster more affordability at local and regional scales. The table below summarizes the strategy recommendations; the button further below links to the full Strategy Toolkit report document for more details.
| Strategy | Description |
|---|---|
| Community land trusts | Create community land trusts to acquire and manages land toward proving long-term affordable housing. |
| Construction workforce pipeline | Encourage training and development of construction and development workforce, including trades, builders, and real estate professionals. |
| Coordinated development standards | Improve alignment between development standards and regulations between jurisdictions to help developers operate more efficiently across the region. |
| Development opportunity promotion | Create awareness about local housing development opportunities and incentives. |
| First-time homebuyer resources | Promote homeownership by connecting prospective first-time homebuyers with local resources and housing opportunities. |
| Housing as economic development | Integrate housing as a primary component of local economic development policy, messaging, and neighborhood revitalization initiatives. |
| Housing database | Create local and regional housing databases that inform data-driven policy decisions and help officials and the public track progress toward achieving housing goals. |
| Housing trust funds | Create housing trust funds at local and regional scales to support land banks and help low-income households purchase homes. |
| Infill development | Promote infill housing through zoning reform, proactive infrastructure upgrades and connections, site preparation and clean-up, and collaboration with land banks trusts. |
| Interlocal infrastructure development funds | Combine resources across jurisdictions to help finance large-scale catalytic infrastructure investments needed to unlock housing development. |
| Land banks | Create land bank entities at local and regional scales to acquire, manage, and redevelop vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties. |
| Manufactured housing | Leverage the local manufactured housing industry by promoting prefabricated units through zoning reform, building department outreach, and other tactics. |
| Proactive infrastructure investment | Invest in water, sewer, and other infrastructure connections to help catalyze development and reduce housing costs. |
| Tax abatement | Reduce development costs for projects that promote local housing goals by phasing in property tax increases over extended periods of time. |
| Tax increment financing | Fund catalytic infrastructure investments that unlock development opportunities with a portion of new projects' future property tax revenue. |
| Transparent approvals process | Reduce developers' uncertainty and risk with more up front, objective, and transparent zoning and approvals processes, development standards, and evaluation criteria. |
| Zoning reform | Modify zoning to support increased and more streamlined housing production, including by allowing smaller houses, encouraging ADUs and multifamily rental conversions, reducing parking requirements, allowing manufactured homes, reflecting development feasibility thresholds, and permitting alternative housing typologies and household configurations. |
Review the full report here:
The Implementation Plan focuses on how regional planning partners can continue to support affordable housing production by convening dialogue, building capacity, and informing local policy.
Review the full report here:
Land bank and investment fund
Housing database
NIRDA housing initiatives
Technical assistance
Housing as Community Foundation priority
Regional housing dialogue
Administrative capacity
The Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG) is a voluntary organization of local governments that studies and attempts to resolve areas of interlocal issues.
CommunityScale is a pioneering urban planning and spatial data analysis company serving clients across the United States. Follow CommunityScale on LinkedIn and Twitter/X. This dashboard is open source MIT license - 2024 CommunityScale