Louisville Metro Council could vote on a new tool Thursday that aims to help prevent residents from being priced out of their neighborhoods.
The council unanimously passed legislation a year ago requiring the city to create an anti-displacement assessment tool.
After months of delays, the finished product is now publicly available and on the verge of becoming a groundbreaking example for city governments that want to tackle unwanted displacement and gentrification.
In Louisville, developers would be required to use it if they want to earn city resources like property, tax-increment financing and letters of support.
Jecorey Arthur, a District 4 Independent, is the primary sponsor of an ordinance approving the tool. He’s been working on the anti-displacement effort since before taking office in Jan. 2021. He said he expects it to pass and has been working with other council members to help them understand the legislation’s goal.
“If people don't experience a problem, they might not understand why we need the solution, or how the solution is going to impact that problem in itself,” Arthur said.
The tool asks for information about a proposed residential development. That includes details like the number of total housing units, what affordability levels those units would be priced at, and where the project would be located.
The tool then provides existing data in the proposed project area, including how racial composition and median rent have changed over time. It’s meant to show if displacement or gentrification could be happening. The tool then ends with a results matrix that decides if the proposal would meet affordability guidelines.
Metro Council’s Planning and Zoning Committee unanimously voted last week to advance an ordinance approving the tool, and recommend that the full council pass it. A bipartisan group of lawmakers also asked to be named co-sponsors of the ordinance.
Arthur represents communities including Smoketown and parts of the West End where residents and activists have rung the alarm on residential displacement. The legislation was formerly aimed at covering eight historically Black neighborhoods, but was later changed to encompass all of Jefferson County.
Arthur said developers’ requests for city resources have been based on gaining political support among Metro Council members. He said that the new tool would base those decisions instead on evidence. But Arthur will likely not take part in implementing the tool, because he is retiring from the council after his first term ends this year.
Asked what a successful tool would look like, Arthur said it would lead to more local funding for affordable housing. That’s because developers interested in using city resources would expect to have to build for “everyday Louisvillians.”
“If other major American cities started to accept this standard, not only do we start to see systemic change within Louisville, but we will see national systemic change that we desperately need,” he said.
Louisville Metro Government commissioned a team of academics from Boston University, the University of Minnesota and the University of South California to help create the tool. According to Arthur, the tool’s developers said it would be the first of its kind used by a major American city to combat displacement.
Jessica Bellamy, a cofounder and organizer with the Louisville Tenants Union, helped Arthur craft the legislation. She said her group has been able to gain support for the anti-displacement effort from residents in all 26 Metro Council districts and expects to utilize the tool.
Because it’s public, anyone can use the tool to measure the impact of a housing project and test to see what would meet affordability guidelines.
“We plan to be using it, not only regularly, but to teach other folks how to use it. We want communities to be very proactive in being engaged in the development process,” Bellamy said.
She also said that she believes the tool will be used by council members as intended to help address an affordable housing shortage in Louisville.
“[I’m] not expecting the rug to be pulled out from under our efforts, because I believe that the vote of confidence that this council has made in supporting this legislation shows that they are not interested in doing business as usual,” Bellamy said.
The anti-displacement law passed by Metro Council last year also requires the creation of a 12-member commission to, in part, monitor the tool’s progress and recommend any changes. Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, who criticized the legislation last year, is required to nominate its nine voting members for Metro Council approval.
Caitlin Bowling, a spokesperson for Louisville Metro’s Cabinet of Economic Development, told LPM News in August that the mayor’s administration expected the members to be presented to the council alongside the anti-displacement tool. Last week, she said she did not have any updates on the status of the commission.
