Bench & Bar September/October 2025

FEATURE: LEGISLATIVE UPDATE

IN QUEST FOR MORE HOUSING BY JAMES P. DADY Local Zoning GENERAL ASSEMBLY TAKES ON

A iming to address Kentucky’s hous ing crisis, the General Assembly has enacted a statewide law curb ing local authority to keep manufactured homes out of residential neighborhoods. This legislative reach into local zoning is a notable turn in city-state relations, zoning being a complex set of rules traditionally consigned to local authority. The new law, enacted as House Bill 160, amending K.R.S. § 100.348, acknowledges the potential conflict with local law in its first paragraph. It credits the local effort to protect property values. But the bill “rec ognizes and affirms” that the provision of quality, affordable manufactured housing serves an essential public purpose. There is no debate about the need for more housing in Kentucky and everywhere in America. Two-thirds of the just-under two million housing units in the commonwealth are at least 25 years old; one third are older than 50. 1 The housing crisis in Kentucky looks acute from every point of vantage.

Kentucky home ownership rates have declined since the 1990s. 2 The decade from 2010 to 2019 produced the lowest percent age of new housing in Kentucky since the 1950s. The need for more housing is captured in a term of planning art called the housing gap, which is the difference between identifiable need and the market’s current capacity to meet it. In 2024, the Kentucky housing gap was 206,207. Without effective intervention, the figure will swell to 287,120 in four years. Homelessness in Kentucky has increased by 28 percent since 2019. The principal driver of the Kentucky hous ing crisis is affordability, or lack thereof. Twenty-seven percent of Kentucky hous ing units are rentals, and in some counties, nearly three of four households are cost-burdened; that is, the rent exceeds 30 percent of income. One fifth of Ken tucky renters are paying more than half their income for shelter. The construction of new homes in Kentucky has fallen by 26 percent since 2000. 3 KENTUCKY HOUSING COSTS UP 49 PERCENT SINCE 2019 Kentucky housing inventory is down by 21

percent since 2018. Housing costs are up by 49 percent in the past five years. The short age of affordable housing in Kentucky hurts worst among moderate- and low-income Kentuckians. 4 A cruel irony in the statistics and an anom aly in the law of supply and demand is that 12 percent of Kentucky housing units are vacant. Kentucky’s housing crisis mirrors the national one. There are more than 771,000 homeless persons in the United States. Half of U.S. renters pay more than 30 percent of their income for shelter. There is a shortage of homes in the U.S. of between four million and seven million. 5 Twenty-eight percent of American adults live alone, often occupying dwellings built for families. 6

16 september/october 2025