All housing options, including rental and ownership, are accessible to all households.

Policy

Support and incentivize development, preservation, and maintenance of affordable housing units of all types and tenure (rental, shared equity, and ownership) that reflect what residents can afford.

Actions are grouped under the categories of Partner, Plan, and Provide to better tell the story of how policy produces results.

• Provide technical assistance and share strategies to counties and local governments to coordinate use of new sources of housing funding and to develop affordable housing opportunities through local program development.
• Livable Communities Act grant programs support more homeownership development opportunities by increasing funding for the Affordable Homeownership program.
• Provide grants through Livable Communities Act programs to prioritize affordable housing options via brownfield and infill site redevelopment.
• Explore, in partnership with Environmental Services and community stakeholders, financial support or other resources to reduce the Publicly Assisted Housing/Conservation Sewer Availability Charge (SAC) for deeply affordable housing projects.
• Partner with Environmental Services to update the Publicly Assisted Housing/Conservation SAC reduction policy to better reflect publicly subsidized affordable housing developments.
• Maintain and improve an accessible data infrastructure to advance knowledge and awareness of the region's housing stock and demographic characteristics.
• Explore the Met Council's ability to use Met Council-owned land to support affordable housing development, especially in identified Transit-Oriented Development areas.
• Provide data and best practices to encourage all levels of government to identify opportunities for publicly owned land to be made available for affordable housing.
• Explore opportunities for Metro HRA to expand capacity for programs that increase the ability for voucher holders to build wealth and access the housing of their choice as their economic situation changes.
• Explore the potential for a Met Council role in monitoring ownership of rental housing properties in the region.
• In partnership with Environmental Services, seek opportunities to defray the costs for manufactured home communities to connect to the wastewater system.

• Provide data reflecting an allocation of Affordable Ownership Housing Need to local governments to inform planning for the development of low-income affordable ownership opportunities based on cities’ and townships’ existing deficit of affordable ownership options.
• Require that local comprehensive plans specify the development and preservation tools they will seek to use or continue to use throughout the decade to meet their local affordable homeownership need.
• Require that local governments, in their comprehensive plan update, identify tools they will seek to use or continue to use to create low-income cooperative, shared ownership, mixed-tenure, or ownership opportunities, including preservation of manufactured housing and development of townhomes, small multifamily, and accessory dwelling units.

• Increase collaboration with local and county housing organizations to prioritize and fund programs that increase, through development or preservation, all affordable housing tenures (rental, cooperative, limited and/or full homeownership).
• Support convening of a regional conversation to reduce barriers across state, regional, county, and city affordable housing funding programs.
• Participate in local, regional, and state conversations and initiatives supporting the rehabilitation and preservation of all types of affordable housing.

Read the next objective, policy, and actions