The city of Covington is convening a group of planners, developers, nonprofit leaders, and other experts to come up with strategies to fill a large housing gap.
Covington Mayor Ron Washington announced the initiative Tuesday evening. He says planning is still in the early stages, but the effort will focus on housing affordable to middle-income people making between $50,000 and $60,000 a year.
Standing outside an abandoned house on Pleasant Street in Covington that’s on the vacant properties list, Washington said there’s a big need for housing for moderate income people.
“They’re working in our restaurants and our libraries,” he said. “To a certain extent they’re our school teachers. They need a place to live.”
One major area the taskforce will focus on: a list of roughly 200 blighted and abandoned properties in Covington. The city has taken possession of 50 of those. Many are tax-delinquent. The city currently spends money on upkeep of those properties and would like to see them returned to productive use.
“Abandoned property in our city hurts us,” he said, pointing to the vacant house . “We still maintain this. We put up plywood. We make sure people aren’t getting in there who aren’t supposed to. That’s a cost. We have many vacant lots. That’s a cost to taxpayers. This gets them back on the tax rolls. Importantly, it puts people in houses, gets people back on the block.”
One first step: Washington has asked city staff to identify 10 city-owned parcels with the highest potential resale potential. Those will then be sold at market value and the proceeds used to fund housing development.
A by the Northern Kentucky Area Development District found that the region needs to build more than 6,600 units of housing over the next three years — most of them affordable to moderate income people. Covington accounts for roughly 891 of those units.
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