People of any ability, age, financial status, race, and family size can live in the community they choose.

Policy

Develop programming, provide resources and funding, and support local, regional, and state initiatives that increase the ability of households to choose where to live in the region regardless of ability, age, financial status, race, or family size.

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

• Prioritize the development, preservation, and rehabilitation of deeply affordable housing in Livable Communities Act programs.
  • Align Livable Communities Act affordability limits with Metropolitan Housing and Redevelopment Authority (Metro HRA) voucher affordability standards by prioritizing Livable Communities projects where voucher holders can afford to reside.
  • Require affordable housing projects awarded Livable Communities grants to accept Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher holders and offer some rents that do not exceed payment standards.
• Encourage the development of affordable housing in all areas of the region by exploring options to provide funding for the development of local housing programs that will increase affordable housing opportunities, with priority for cities and townships that do not have a demonstrated history of developing affordable housing.
• Provide technical assistance and convene workshops for local governments to:
  • Develop and share initiatives, policies, and programs that increase regional housing choice
  • Help communicate the connections between affordable housing income limits and resident housing, economic, and social experience
  • Support "missing middle" housing (small and medium multifamily and attached single family homes) as a strategy to improve affordability and expand housing choices for cities and townships across the region.
• Assist voucher holders to access housing of their choice through housing search assistance, opportunities for adopting higher payment standards, and incorporating voucher-holder perspectives in place-based assistance.
• Track all new housing constructed in the region to assess its affordability and report trends in affordable housing construction in the region.
  

• Calculate a Future Affordable Housing Need for sewer-serviced cities and townships based on their forecasted household growth for the 2031-2040 decade. Require cities and townships to address how they will meet their local allocation of Future Affordable Housing Need by guiding sufficient eligible land at high enough densities for affordable housing development.
• Ensure that the Future Affordable Housing Need calculation elevates the need for deeply affordable housing in the region.

• In the review of 2050 local comprehensive plans, consider adjusting the local allocation of Future Affordable Housing Need when economic centers are created or lost, to more responsively allocate where affordable housing is needed relative to low-wage jobs.[1]
• Develop a system for attributing credit for cities and townships who have successfully adopted affordable housing development policy, as defined by Met Council, towards meeting their requirement for land guided for affordable housing.

[1] Met Council Future Affordable Housing Need

• Continue to partner with Minnesota Housing to share data and technical assistance, and align funding, for affordable housing development.
• Increase collaboration with local, county and state housing agencies and authorities to prioritize and fund the development of all affordable housing types, including multifamily, detached housing, townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, manufactured housing, and accessory dwelling units.
• Provide thought leadership including exploring opportunities to partner at the federal, state and local level to advance the evolution of affordability standards that improve on current affordability limit models to be more reflective of resident experience.
• Identify and address the specific challenges and barriers to the development of affordable housing in different city and township contexts, especially those in Suburban Edge and Rural Center community designations.

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