Priorities at heart of Lima Housing Task Force’s work
By David Trinko - dtrinko@limanews.com
LIMA — The quest to update Lima’s stock of available housing is starting to develop its own language.
Terms such as “healthy neighborhood,” “tipping point” and “revitalization neighborhood” took center stage at Tuesday’s meeting of the Lima Housing Task Force as it tries to figure out how to best solve the problem.
One possible answer may be a new type of zoning, “form-based codes.”
The recently completed assessment of Lima’s housing stock by Columbus-based Harsany & Associates looked at the city by census tract, said Sharetta Smith, the chair of the committee and Lima’s chief of staff. Along the way, it labeled some neighborhoods as “healthy,” mostly on the west side and northernmost parts of the city, as well as surrounding townships. That means there is “market-sustaining occupancy” and demand for housing in those 10 areas.