Akron is trying to make it faster and cheaper to build homes in existing neighborhoods.
A proposal from the city and the Summit County Land Bank is asking architects to draw plans that anyone could use, free of charge, to build a house in the city. The goal is to make it easier for people to put new houses in areas where homes had previously been demolished.
With the availability of free plans that have been pre-reviewed by city officials, developers and other builders wouldn’t have to hire their own architects to draw building plans, and they wouldn’t need the government to sign off on the designs.
The land bank has asked for architects who are willing to draw four “Made in Akron” plans:
- A two-story, detached single-family home with three bedrooms that is between 1,200 and 1,500 square feet.
- A one-story, detached single-family home with two bedrooms and an optional third bedroom that is between 1,000 and 1,100 square feet.
- A two-family home with two bedrooms and an optional third bedroom per unit that is between 1,000 and 1,200 square feet per unit.
- A fourplex apartment building with one-bedroom units that are between 800 and 1,100 square feet.
Having those plans could save as much as $10,000 in development costs on a new home, said Kyle Julien, Akron’s planning director.
“We’re bringing down development costs by taking down the cost of plans,” he said. “We’re removing barriers to the production of housing in the city.”
Julien said doing so can add people to neighborhoods, improving the fabric of the community.
Proposed homes would have to match those already in Akron
The “Made in Akron” plan isn’t a new idea — Julien compared it to the kit homes Sears and other companies produced. Additionally, other cities across the country have taken steps to create their own plans. Akron’s request for proposals from architects — which are due today — emulates those in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and South Bend, Indiana.
The Akron plans must fit in with existing homes in the area, Julien said, in terms of the number of windows and the finishes that can help a new home seem in line with older construction. He said he hopes easing the path to having such plans will spur development.
That’s what happened in South Bend, where Tim Corcoran, the director of planning and community resources, said 64 buildings with 79 units have been permitted since that city rolled out its program in 2023. He said he expects to see more new home starts this year than South Bend has seen since the 1990s.
In part, South Bend’s pre-reviewed plans save time for developers who no longer have to wait as long for city approval. But Corcoran said a lot of the time savings also come from the fact that small developers in particular no longer have to worry about what he calls decision fatigue as they consider all the options for what they could build.
“It takes decisions off the table,” he said. “This makes it simple.”
Akron’s goals in proposing the plans are to simplify the process of developing homes, including by expanding the number of small developers and entrepreneurs who can build using the plans. Corcoran said in South Bend, he’s seen that happen. Additionally, some people who built single-family homes are now beginning to expand into multifamily units, increasing density.
Nonprofits, community development corporations could benefit from Akron housing proposal
On Kenmore Boulevard, Eleni Manousogiannakis is renovating two two-bedroom apartments above a business space owned by the Better Kenmore CDC. Manousogiannakis, who is the community development corporation’s executive director, said she’d like to see more housing in the neighborhood — and she could see the CDC making use of existing housing plans to build some, if it had the money to do it.
“I think it’s a good beginning and a good start,” she said. “I can definitely say it would make a difference for our CDC should we go through the housing direction.”
In Sherbondy Hill and West Akron, at the Progressive Alliance CDC, William Eugene Blake said he likes the fact that the pre-reviewed plans would help streamline the process of getting more housing built.
But he said he’s concerned that Akron’s current zoning rules wouldn’t allow some of the proposed home types to be built in neighborhoods. And, he worries that the city isn’t being bold enough in addressing other proposals, like the need for more housing near transit. He’d like to see the city focus on proposals like a community land trust, which separates the sale of land from the sale of the building on it as a way to control some costs.
“It still doesn’t solve our issues,” Blake, the CDC’s executive director, said of the pre-approved plan proposal. “I am very hopeful for the future. I just wish we had a more comprehensive view.”
In Indiana, the five home plans Corcoran started with are now 10, with variations available to best fit local conditions. Corcoran said 70% of those who are building homes using the plans are CDCs or other nonprofits. He’s starting to see more private interest, but because construction costs are often higher than what developers can sell a property for, he said it took a little while for developers to start using the plans.
Costs need to work for Akron’s housing proposal to succeed
Having pre-reviewed plans won’t suddenly make it affordable to build new homes, said Richard Bancroft, the executive officer of the Home Builders Association of Portage & Summit Counties. But he said the association supports anything that can help streamline the building process, and this does.
But, Bancroft said, the city and land bank must be aware of how much the plans they’re proposing cost to build. The expense of new construction is “one of the things that has been most vexing with home building,” he said, and simply having the plans may not do enough to reduce costs.
The South Bend plan initially called for a fourplex, but Corcoran said the math didn’t work to build them. So now the city offers a six-plex instead. Bancroft said developers can value-engineer six- or eight-unit buildings so they make financial sense — either as townhomes or as stacked flats. (Akron’s proposal prefers side-by-side units for duplexes and suggests the fourplex it’s asking for could be scaled up to six or eight units.)
Bancroft said he likes the flexibility that’s part of the city’s request, particularly since the proposal asks for optional extra rooms or garages that could help make the plans work across geographies in the city.
“You can’t come up with a one-size-fits-all solution,” Bancroft said. “We’ve got to get creative. This is an example of creative thinking. I think it could be a very positive step.”
Housing plans could be used across Summit County
And if the project is successful, it could expand beyond Akron to all of Summit County, said Patrick Bravo, the executive director of the Summit County Land Bank.
Replicating the plans for other communities locally could boost the impact of the proposal, he said. He eventually envisions a Summit County catalog of home plans developers could choose from, free of charge, that would work on most lots in the area.
Bravo said it’s too soon to say what the plans will cost to develop, but he thinks areas the city has been focused on redeveloping — like Summit Lake and Sherbondy Hill — could benefit from reduced costs and faster approvals.
Julien, with the city, said he’d like to see plans that could produce homes that would be available for less than $250,000. He sees the proposal as a way to help restore neighborhoods — particularly those where demolitions have affected the character of an area and reduced the number of people living there. After all, he said, the city owns several hundred parcels where homes could be built. Why not take steps to make it easier to do so, he asked?
“We want to bring more options to everybody,” he said. “I’m super excited about it.”
Julien said he and Bravo have been talking about the possibility since last year, though it took some time to determine what housing types they wanted to pursue. Bravo said the idea has been on his radar for seven or eight years.
“It has been a slow burn getting here,” he said.
That was also the case in South Bend, where the idea was broached three years before the first home was built. Corcoran said he finally figured out that if he wanted to improve housing in the area, he had to be the one to act to do it.
“I don’t know a lot about Akron, but if it’s anything like South Bend, change needs to happen,” he said.