Summit County Council created the housing authority in December 2024 to create and manage affordable housing.
Summit County residents Kristen Schulz, Jennifer Lewis, Joan Meixner and Rich Sonntag were unanimously appointed to the council April 30. They join councilmembers Canice Harte, Tonja Hanson and Megan McKenna.
During the Friday meeting, Lewis was nominated as chair, Sonntag as vice-chair and Meixner as secretary.
Using its $250,000 budget, the board wants to focus on advocacy and community education. Some of the money has already been allocated; $31,500 has been set aside to create an online dashboard, conduct a utility allowance study and to set up employee housing partnerships. Another $50,000 is meant to help launch incentives for Eastern Summit County to create affordable housing.
The group also discussed short and long-term goals for the authority.
Schulz said to start, the authority should consider working to maximize existing housing opportunities rather than solely focusing on new construction. Lewis agreed.
“What can we do that would impact the community almost, you know, almost immediately, right? And that would be housing vouchers and subsidy programs,” Lewis said.
The others agreed. Hart said housing choice vouchers should be a top priority and McKenna said the authority could start its own voucher program.
The authority also wants to create its own affordable housing dashboard to paint a picture of housing affordability and availability within the county. Schulz said the dashboard should factor in tourists as well.
“In our own dashboard, I think when we look at number of residents and number of units, I do think we need to have the short-term rental data that the county is going to be collecting somewhere on the dashboard,” she said. “It really does tell the story more accurately.”
In the long term, the authority agreed it would like to be involved in development. Meixner said in one to four years the authority should start looking for partners and eventually think about becoming a developer on its own.
The authority plans to meet monthly.
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