Last week, the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation announced that $3.4 million in tax credits were awarded to help fund the construction of two apartment developments totalling 84 units in Hutchinson.
It is tremendous news, an important step forward in responding to Reno County’s housing needs. It may also be a sign of what it will take to continue to make headway. It took cooperation between private industry, local government and the nonprofit sector to make these tax credits happen.
We expect other big swings, like adding double digits of homes, will similarly take a multilayered approach. Interfaith Housing & Community Services, Hutchinson Community College, and USD 308 are working together, for example, on the former St. Elizabeth’s Hospital site on West 20th Avenue. The school district, college and nonprofit are making plans to build homes there over multiple years, with funding from a Fostering Residential Advancement through Mentoring and Education grant that already supported construction of a duplex and single-family home at other locations.
A 2024 housing needs assessment determined that Reno County needs to add over 1,000 more units of housing by 2035. That works out to an average of about 91 units per year. Although we lack a precise accounting of additions and subtractions to county housing stock, we suspect things are behind that pace so far.
It isn’t difficult to see why. At a time when prices for construction materials are up sharply, it is difficult for private businesses to profitably build homes where the population isn’t growing. Meanwhile, major investments in housing by the government and nonprofits tend to move slowly. Hutchinson has sought tax credits for these apartment projects for more than a year, and there is still a lot of work to do before any apartments are move-in-ready.
Regardless, 84 housing units will make a difference. Every additional home counts. That includes apartments and, as most of those 84 units are, affordable housing.
Furthermore, we like the details we know about plans for the developments. Hutchinson Park, on Lorraine Street, should put the former site of the Atrium Hotel and Convention Center to good use again after years of disuse. And Plaza Trails will be in an excellent location, next to Dillons Marketplace and the Bob Helfrich (Bad Bobby) Memorial Trail, giving renters easy access to groceries and outdoor recreation.
It will be important for organizations with an interest in Reno County’s housing stock to aim high. Not every development will go according to plan. For example, despite multiple layers of incentives, the Plum Creek subdivision in Hutchinson hasn’t progressed as far as expected at this point.
There also isn’t any standing still on the issue of housing stock. A community that isn’t investing in housing is a community that is losing ground. You can’t build a home and expect it to keep the same condition without working on it; every homeowner knows this. And even when houses are properly maintained, house fires and other disasters happen.
No, if you aren’t making an effort to move forward, you’re losing ground on housing needs.
As important as new construction is, keeping existing housing in good shape is also important. Every house and every apartment that is rendered uninhabitable, whether by neglect or by disaster, is one more unit that needs to be built.
A home has to be really far gone before it makes more sense to bulldoze it and start over than to reinvest in, repair and rehabilitate it. But there are fewer sources of outside funding to help communities keep their existing housing in good repair, and those fewer sources are also generally smaller. That’s why, when a portion of COVID relief funds were designated for housing rehab, demand outstripped available funds.
We know it’s unlikely that housing repair grants could equal the $3.4 million tax credits for the apartment projects, but it is still worth looking for ways to support housing repairs in Hutchinson and Reno County.
– The Hutchinson Tribune Editorial Board