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Kentucky's next generation deserved better from this legislative session.
For two years, Kentucky’s Housing Task Force built a record, heard from builders, experts, local officials, and families struggling to afford a place to live. Ultimately, the task force embraced recommendations advanced by the Bluegrass Institute last year.
The data couldn't be clearer: Kentucky is not producing enough homes, affordability for working-class households has deteriorated, and the regulations that make it harder and more expensive to build are the primary culprit. The fix to Kentucky’s housing crisis doesn't require a dollar of new spending. What it does require is the political will to get government out of the way to let markets function properly.
Legislation that was one concurrence away from final passage would have altered the housing marketplace to make homes more affordable, enhance Kentuckians’ property rights, clear away needless regulatory barriers, and give developers greater confidence to undertake projects.
Kentucky lawmakers couldn’t get the job done, and that failure carries real consequences for young people across our commonwealth.
Every year without reform is another year that home prices climb faster than wages, another year that young families from Lexington or Bowling Green begin looking to other states to meet their housing needs. As a practical matter, zero reform means allowing other states to welcome into their communities tomorrow’s entrepreneurs, parents, and their children.
The Bluegrass Institute supported the imperfect reform on offer not because it was everything young people deserve, but because meaningful deregulatory reform — third-party plan review, permitting shot clocks, parking reform, vested rights protections, mixed-use flexibility — represents exactly the kind of zero-cost, market-enabling policy that actually works. Other states aren’t waiting to attract young people to their states. So far, Kentucky has just watched from the sidelines.
The next generation of Kentucky homeowners, renters, entrepreneurs, parents, and workers will be paying attention. Next year’s lawmakers should, too.
Caleb O. Brown is CEO of the Bluegrass Institute.
