By ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Rural Kansas needs around 4,000 new homes per year to meet a growing population’s housing needs and address the state’s housing crisis.
From legislation enabling zoning reform at the local level to boosted tax credits for developers, Kansas legislators heard about a myriad of options this week to increase the state’s housing supply.
A major focus for state lawmakers is finding ways to increase the availability of affordable housing because a majority of low-income Kansans and about 27% of all Kansas residents are spending more than 30% of their income on housing costs such as rent payments, mortgages and utilities.
Erin Beckerman with Kansas Housing Resources Corporation, which administers housing-related programs for the state, told legislators Tuesday that an estimated 3,800-4,800 homes need to be built each year in rural Kansas to meet demand. That’s based on a 2021 statewide housing needs analysis, but it doesn’t include metro areas.
Topeka conducted its own analysis, which found it needed about 720 new homes annually, which includes affordable and workforce housing along with market-rate and special housing types. About 8,200 new housing units were created in Kansas in 2023, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
Federal funding sources, which are administered through the corporation, only stretch so far in Kansas. At the same time, relatively new state programs are filling gaps. They include housing investor tax credits, affordable housing tax credits and Reinvestment Housing Incentive Districts, which helps fund public infrastructure improvements through developers.
Rep. Sean Tarwater, a Stilwell Republican and chair of the 2024 special committee on available and affordable housing, said legislators have taken significant steps to address housing affordability and availability.
“We’ve got to be cognizant of the programs that we currently have before we start piling on new programs, and we got to make sure the ones we have work also,” he said Tuesday.
Analysts nationwide point to a lack of affordable and available homes as cause for the housing crisis across the country, and, according to Stan Longhofer, professor and founding director of Wichita State University’s Center for Real Estate, that lack is largely the result of a steady and prolonged decline in home construction after the 2008 financial crisis. Developers, too, have been plagued by rising construction costs, permitting delays and shifting markets.
Longhofer predicted a worsening of the housing crisis because of what wasn’t built in the 2010s, he told legislators Tuesday. Less housing is available to Kansans now than before the COVID-19 pandemic, he said.
Rethinking paths to housing development
Jamie Sauder, the 2025 president of the Kansas Association of Realtors and an Emporia city commissioner, on Tuesday proposed that legislators reexamine a state statute that he said prevented an earlier effort from Emporia and Lyon County to change their zoning laws.
To Sauder, modifying a piece of a state law that ties property use to zoning could have great effect.
Emporia needs about 250 new homes to be built annually to address the area’s housing needs, but the reality has turned out to be about 13 new units annually.
“What we’ve seen in rural areas is an erosion of profitability, and when you don’t have profitability, you’re not going to have development,” he said.
Emporia’s initial goal was to shift from a Euclidean zoning model, a customary type of zoning in the United States and one that typically ties one land use, such as single family residential development, to a single zone. It wanted to adopt form-based zoning codes, which regulate land development based on appearance instead of property use. Such a move could free up local governments to streamline and simplify land use, Sauder said. In turn, building housing, particularly in rural areas, can be approached differently.
Legislators ultimately agreed to take a look at state laws on the books that may restrict local governments’ ability to change their own zoning laws.
“What I would suggest is if there are things that we have in statute at the state level that make it difficult for local municipalities to have the flexibility regarding their zoning laws that we take a look at those,” said Sen. Renee Erickson, a Wichita Republican, on Wednesday.
Sen. Tim Shallenburger, a Republican from Baxter Springs near the borders of Oklahoma and Missouri, voiced concerns over builders who aren’t attracted to build in small towns like his own. Small-town workers are forced to live outside of their communities because developers favor building in more profitable and populated areas, he said.
On Wednesday, Shallenburger proposed to recommend to the 2025 legislature an idea from the city of Pittsburgh to allow homebuilders in cities smaller than 60,000 people to recoup certain costs from a single project through the increase in value that development spurs. It was met with unanimous agreement.
Legislators also recommended reviewing state law to examine barriers to local solutions to affordable housing, examining permit processes and exploring an appraisal process for community land trusts, which are nonprofits that can hold land and facilitate affordable housing development. Some attempted to recommend eviction law reforms and a review of the state’s Landlord Tenant Act, but they were met with pushback, particularly from Tarwater, who said he is a landlord. He warned that any addition of mandatory inspections wouldn’t be likely to reduce rental costs.