NEW ALBANY, Ind. — The New Albany City Council is backing Mayor Jeff Gahan to pause construction on new apartments in the city with another unanimous vote to move forward with the proposed moratorium.
With the hunt for affordable housing growing more difficult, the city is moving closer to saying no more to new apartments and short term rentals.
A decision, some New Albany residents are against.
"In my professional opinion, it's more of a local attempt to band aid a national issue," New Albany homeowner Zachary White said. "The cost for a single-family property has skyrocketed. You can't really build as affordable as you previously had for the same square footage that you can get in a multi-family property."
The ultimate goal of the moratorium is to increase homeownership, by temporarily stopping the construction of multi-family properties for at least a year.
A comprehensive housing study for New Albany, conduced by the University of Louisville, found that homeownership in the city has fallen from a high of 65.6% in 1960, to 54.5% today.
“We will certainly be considering affordable housing. New Albany has a very good portfolio of affordable housing both in the public sector and private sector," New Albany Plan Commission Director Scott Wood said. "I’m comfortable with the one-year schedule, I think we can get it done inside that. If not, we’ll have to ask the council for an extension. It will not be years and years and years before we’re ready to build again. We know that we need the housing and we need the opportunity.”
White believes that with the increased mobility among younger generations, a moratorium could lead to a population exodus.
"When there are less apartment units, there's less opportunity for people my age and younger to enter a community," he said. "A lot of jobs are remote now, a lot of jobs are temporary…think of the employers here in this area, UPS has seasonal employees that come and go, short-term leases."
The New Albany City Council will now conduct their third reading of the proposed moratorium at the meeting Feb. 15.
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