Housing in Worthington

At the July 14 city council meeting, Worthington’s housing strategies were discussed. A variety of strategies from tax abatements to development subsidies to accessory dwelling units were considered. Council directed city staff on what policies and budget items should be planned for 2025-2026. Below are the bullet points from the conversation. 

Tax Abatements: Promoting workforce housing for 20-30% of units at 50-60% AMI. Longer abatements for 60-80% AMI.

Beth Kowalczyk said Columbus is doing this. Suburbs are not really doing this. We should signal to developers that the city is open to this.

Housing Fund: Grant program down apartment upkeep, first-time homeowner grants/loans, subsidize workforce housing developments, income-based grants for house upkeep.

Beth Kowalczyk said let’s have something like this in the budget.

Rachael Dorothy agreed this needs to be reflected in our budget.

Zoning: Consider broader inclusion of development like accessory dwelling units, duplexes, quadplexes, patio homes, village style homes.

Beth Kowalczyk said we need to look at the pending comprehensive plan. We need to look at zoning that is outdated and where it is preventing developers from working here, which is a likely outcome of the comprehensive plan update.

Rachael Dorothy agrees. Traditional housing has never had the restraints on building. Development should allow for incremental increase as we have more population. People should be able to build additional units on their land that has space. We absolutely need to have zoning changes.

Beth Kowalczyk said we had a housing study and now we are working on the comprehensive plan update, and tonight’s planning needs to fit into the larger planning.

Public Comments

Doug Holmes: The proposed 2,000 units in Worthington brings questions. Where will the units go? Proposed row houses will not work. We need to be careful about what we are actually talking about, especially when it comes to topics that haven’t happened yet. According to the housing survey 2024, people are already happy with the housing in Worthington. Have meaningful discussion on the front end that addresses demand and also what residents favor.

Ron Sears: Council’s recent conversations have been too narrow on high-density apartments. Outside development creates permanent loss of wealth from Worthington residents, because money goes out of the city. Instead, home ownership creates local wealth. We do not want rapidly increasing rents, which is what happens when outside developers build apartments. I suggest promoting accessory dwelling units.

Beth Kowalczyk said let’s move forward on the abatement policies in August since the city is already getting developer requests for this.

David Robinson said we need to look at housing holistically. It seems many of the housing issues stem from a regional approach. We have to acknowledge the tensions between regional forces and what the Worthington residents want.

Rebecca Hermann asked how do we determine CRA (abatements) if the comprehensive plan leads us to changing the zoning? For example, quadplexes could be built in current single-family housing zones if the zoning changes (after the comprehensive plan).

Beth Kowalczyk said she doesn’t want to miss opportunities where there is flexibility (for developers to build apartments in commercial corridors for example).

It will inevitably be a part of the comprehensive plan.

Amy Llyod said she likes the idea of building housing in commercial corridors.

Rachael Dorothy said zoning is going to come out in the comprehensive plan. Let’s allow residential building in commercial corridors.