Housing series · Working proposals · September 2026
Marion County loses households to its own suburbs every year. Most of the reason is that it is slower, less predictable and more expensive to build a home here. These pages are what I intend to do about that, sorted by who can act and when.
Every housing idea dies the same way: it gets pitched to a body that has no authority over it. So the sort below is not by how much I like an idea. It is by who decides it, what instrument they use, and the earliest it can realistically happen.
Track A Administration or the Metropolitan Development Commission can do it now, no new law.
Track B Needs a City-County Council instrument: resolution, ordinance or budget.
Track C Needs the General Assembly. Next window is the 2027 session.
Track D Realistically lands after the November 2027 municipal election.
| Idea | Who decides | Instrument | Earliest | Track |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Homeownership and neighborhood reinvestment | ||||
| Residential Reinvestment AbatementBuild or substantially rebuild a 1–4 unit home in a designated zone and the parcel carries a published property-tax abatement that follows the house to its buyer. | Metropolitan Development Commission, as the statutory designating body | MDC preliminary and confirming resolutions; Council launch resolution first | 2027, if the legal opinion comes back yes | A B |
| Pilot the abatement on Vacant to Vibrant parcelsThe city land bank already requires new construction or rehab, owner occupancy and a title-company closing. Attach the abatement there first. | Department of Metropolitan Development | Program policy, no vote | 2027 | A |
| Accountability for owners nobody can reachFund receiverships under the Unsafe Building Law, certify the vacant-and-abandoned tax-sale list every year, pass a nuisance ordinance with cost recovery, and flag nominal transfers from entities not in good standing. The stick that feeds the carrot. | Mayor's administration and Corporation Counsel; Council for budget and ordinance | Budget line for receivership; ordinance; county executive certification | 2027 budget; ordinance 2027 | A B |
| Abatement transfers without the buyer re-applyingIndiana keeps the abatement alive through a sale but makes the new owner file. A narrow amendment would let it run with the parcel. | General Assembly | Amendment to IC 6-1.1-12.1, consolidated city only | 2027 session | C |
| State law we now have to implement | ||||
| HEA 1001 compliance, done as if we meant itThe 2026 state housing law requires a public review of our unified development ordinance against nine barriers, duplex-to-fourplex density and accessory dwellings among them, with minutes and findings filed with the state by January 1, 2027, plus annual housing reports after that. The review can be a formality or the moment we fix the code. | City-County Council and DMD | Public hearing and report; any code changes through the normal zoning track | Hearing and report by January 1, 2027 | B |
| How the city decides on incentives | ||||
| One front door and a published incentive policyToday no single body owns an incentive decision and no written policy says how one is scored. | Mayor's administration, DMD, Indianapolis Economic Development, Inc. | Administrative policy; Council budget and appointments as leverage | 2027 | A B |
| Independent underwriting above a thresholdA neutral third party tests whether the gap is real and how big it is, and the finding is published. | MDC for abatements; Council for TIF and bond deals | MDC policy resolution; Council ordinance | 2027 | A B |
| Incentive review runs alongside zoning, on a clockStop telling builders to come back after entitlements. Early conditional commitments and published decision deadlines. | Mayor's administration and DMD | Administrative policy, formalized in writing | Now | A |
| Affordability and staying put | ||||
| A broad-based housing fund instead of a market-rate-only exactionEveryone who benefits from growth contributes a little, transparently, and deep affordability gets built at scale by the operators equipped to run it. | Council and administration; possibly the General Assembly for the fee structure | Ordinance; fund charter; likely state authority | 2028 | B C D |
| Displacement protection that does not block supplyTax relief for long-tenured lower-income homeowners in appreciating neighborhoods, and real support for the community land trust. | General Assembly for property-tax relief; Council for land-trust funding | State statute; Council budget | 2027 session; 2027 budget | B C |
The "earliest" column is my estimate, not a schedule. Two dates in it are statutory: the January 1, 2027 hearing-and-report deadline in HEA 1001, and the General Assembly's 2027 session. Everything else depends on a written legal opinion I have requested but do not yet have. The timeline page separates what is scheduled from what is proposed.
An earlier draft of this series described HEA 1001 as making duplexes and accessory dwellings permitted uses unless the city opted out by December 31, 2026. That was the House version. The enrolled act dropped it. What remains is the hearing and reporting requirement above, limits on permit fees after December 31, 2026, and an extension of residential TIF programs from 20 to 25 years. Details on the system page.
Seven more pages
1
The abatement
A property-tax break a homebuyer can see on their own tax record, with a calculator that models the real saving.
2
The map
All 253 Marion County tracts scored on five indicators. Type an address and see the schedule that would apply.
3
Accountability
Who owns the houses in the weakest tracts, the entities nobody can serve, and the pipeline from receivership or tax sale back to use.
4
Affordability
The cost burden in verified numbers, and what each proposal does and does not do about it.
5
The system
How Indianapolis decides housing incentives today, next to how it should. Eight rows, read across.
6
The timeline
Who acts, when, and what branches if the legal opinion comes back no.
7
The objections
Every reason the abatement will not work, and what I say back. And a form to add yours.
What this means for you
Pick who you are in the bar at the top and this section changes.
Three rows in the table are yours: the abatement, the land-bank pilot and incentive review on a clock. What I need from you is the closing-table reality. Does a published schedule change which lots you build first, at what price point does it stop mattering, and what does your buyer's lender do with it? The abatement page has a calculator; break it.
The abatement is designed to show up on the parcel record the way a homestead deduction does, which means it shows up in a listing. I need to know what the MLS would need to display it, how a buyer's agent would verify it, and whether the transfer form at closing is workable. The map page has an address lookup; try it on three listings.
Two things: the HEA 1001 review is the moment to fix the code, and the owner-occupied duplex on a 40-foot lot is the product this program is built for. Show me one a household at 100 percent of area median income can finance.
The whole program depends on how underwriting treats an abatement that transfers to the buyer with the remaining years fixed. If it counts toward debt-to-income, a household at 80 percent of area median income qualifies for a $325,000 new home. If it does not, the model overstates the benefit and I need to know.
You are the deep-affordability half of this series. The abatement is not built for households at 30 or 50 percent of area median income, and the affordability page says so. What I want from you is what a ten-year abatement on improvement value does to the carrying cost of your next home, stacked on your own mortgage or ground-lease product.
If you own your home, nothing in this series raises or lowers your tax bill. If a new house or a substantially rebuilt one goes up on your block in a Reinvestment or Growth tract, that parcel carries the abatement; yours is unchanged. If you are trying to buy your first home, the abatement is designed for you. The map page will tell you which zone your address is in.
The Council appears once on the abatement track, and its instrument is a request, not an enactment. The program is created by an MDC confirming resolution. What I am asking colleagues for now is support for a launch resolution requesting the written legal opinion and the zone schedule. Nothing else until that comes back.
None of this gets built by the Council. It gets built by the people below, and it only works if they can tell me early where I am wrong.