**Updated with 2023 data, and new charts added***
The Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments (OKI) has launched a new digital tool designed to aid those who work in the residential planning and housing policy sectors.
More than a year in development, OKI’s Housing Data Dashboard “provides an array of metrics on population and housing at the county, community and neighborhood levels,” said Andy Meyer, the initiative’s project manager and OKI’s senior planner for land use.
“It’s designed to inform local planning and discussion on housing topics and encourage a data-driven approach to setting housing goals and policy,” Meyer said. “The tool provides the necessary information and context for users with varying levels of experience with housing policy.”
Greater Cincinnati, like most regions across the United States, is grappling with a significant housing shortage and rising prices. This is prompting local governments and community organizations to seek innovative solutions to expand the housing supply and address the affordability crisis.
“OKI designed the dashboard with the housing crisis in mind,” Meyer said. “We believe it will be an asset in helping governments, housing advocates, and anyone involved in effectively addressing this societal challenge.”
The dashboard includes local data on demographics and trends, housing types and numbers, housing age and costs, housing affordability and rental housing.
These metrics “give a detailed picture of how well current housing options are meeting the needs of a particular community’s residents,” Meyer said. “With this data, communities can plan for housing that closely aligns with their specific needs and goals.”
Luke Blocher, chief strategy officer and general counsel for the Cincinnati Development Fund (CDF), attended a recent demonstration to see firsthand how the tool works. He directs CDF’s Affordable Housing Leverage Fund, which pools public, private and philanthropic capital to help finance the production and preservation of affordable housing across the region.
“The CDF works regularly with both the policymakers and financial institutions trying to support housing production in our region, and the wide range of developers trying to build it,” Blocher said. “Everyone in that housing ecosystem will benefit from the very accessible way OKI’s new Housing Data Dashboard tells the data-based realities of housing from a county perspective all the way down to a neighborhood census tract-level.”
Blocher, former deputy city solicitor for the city of Cincinnati, added, “The dashboard’s continuously updated insights on supply, demand, affordability, and housing type and age – among others – should undoubtedly be part of this region’s housing conversations going forward.”
The tool offers a convenient format for OKI counties, local jurisdictions, and neighborhoods to access a broad range of demographic and housing data from the U.S. Census Bureau and other sources.
As part of OKI’s Strategical Regional Policy Plan’s (SRPP) update in 2023, the agency identified the need to understand and address local housing trends and challenges.
“The policy recommendations in our SRPP were designed to advance local jurisdiction opportunities for stabilizing and revitalizing housing stock throughout the region, improve housing affordability, and increase housing availability that supports equity and upward mobility,” Meyer said.
