Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther will announce a $500 million bond issue during his annual State of the City speech Wednesday evening.
Ginther is outlining priorities for the city like affordable housing and combatting domestic violence during a 6 p.m. speech at the Fort Hayes Performing Arts Center. Ginther spoke to 星空无限传媒 ahead of his speech about these topics and the city shared a draft of his speech.
Ginther is announcing the city will ask voters this November to approve borrowing $500 million to fund affordable housing construction plus new police and fire stations. Ginther said is the third, and largest, borrowing ask for housing by the city in history, after a $50 million housing bond issue passed in 2019 and a $200 million housing bond issue passed in 2022.
"We have underbuilt and underdeveloped since before the Great Recession, and that issue has just compounded since then. So over the next decade, we need to build 200,000 homes across our region just to meet demand," Ginther said.
The city expects 100,000 of those housing units will be built in the city of Columbus. Ginther said borrowing this amount of money will help keep up with that demand.
Ginther said he thinks the construction will mostly happen around the city's main transit corridors in the next decade in conjunction with the city's zoning code updates that are still being implemented.
"We believe that we can get 88,000 units, almost that 100,000, just along the corridors," Ginther said. "So I do believe those transit corridors will be where the vast majority of new housing units are coming online."
One topic that is absent from Ginther's speech is last year's cyber attack that crippled city systems and leaked data onto the dark web. Ginther told 星空无限传媒 the city is still fully committed to addressing the issue and will release a thorough report on the attack this year.
"Our hope is to share that in the next few months with the council, and it will also kind of be our roadmap, our blueprint for cybersecurity efforts in the years ahead," Ginther said.
Ginther said 97% of the city's systems are back online after the attack. He did not know which systems specifically were still offline or why.
Homicides are dropping in Columbus so far this year.
As of Monday, the city has seen 14 homicides. At this time last year, the city saw 23 homicides. In 2021 and 2023, that number was above 50.
Ginther said the number of domestic violence-related homicides has gone up. The Columbus Division of Police said four homicides this year were related to domestic violence.
Ginther said the city is creating a strategic plan in the city's Office of Violence Prevention to address the issue, but said it is a community issue that the police can't tackle alone. He said this plan will be released next month.
"This is not an issue that police can solve for us. If we're waiting for the police to solve domestic violence and domestic violence homicides, we aren't doing our job in the rest of the community," Ginther said.
Ginther said the community's responsibility is to know and understand what domestic violence is and how it can escalate so quickly. He said the city also plays a role with providing resources like putting more funding towards Lutheran Social Services鈥� CHOICES 24/7 shelter for victims of intimate partner violence and their children.
"If they are going through a crisis... challenges with financial or housing instability, all the pressures that sometimes can add to domestic violence situations escalating," Ginther said. "Making sure folks have the resources and support they need to avoid a situation that goes from dangerous to becoming deadly."
Ginther is also announcing in his speech that the city will make improvements to North High Street in the Short North, Livingston Avenue on the city's south side and Sullivant Avenue in the Hilltop. This is the next step in the city's Clean and Safe Corridors Initiative that started on Parsons Avenue this month.
Through this effort, Ginther said Columbus crews filled potholes, picked up trash, addressed specific safety issues, inspected local businesses and identified and monitored code violations over two weeks. Those same efforts will be made in the other three corridors.
When asked why the city is focusing efforts on the Short North so early rather than other neighborhoods that don't get as much attention from the city, Ginther defended the decision.
"The Short North, it's critically important to all of our neighborhoods throughout our city because of the millions of people that come to the Short North, either from other places around central Ohio or from out of town," Ginther said. "It's a critical part of our marketing to conferences and conventions around the country and the world."
Ginther said the other neighborhoods are just as important and the initiative will expand even more after these three corridors are addressed.
Ginther will also tout the soon-to-be-released registry of vacant and foreclosed homes coming out June 1. This list will take inventory of vacant homes in the city and help residents identify the owners of these properties.
"We鈥檒l know exactly who is responsible for maintaining uninhabited properties in your neighborhood 鈥� and who we can hold accountable if a property falls into disrepair in order to protect safety and quality of life," Ginther said in his speech draft.
星空无限传媒 asked Ginther about Columbus City Council candidate Kate Curry-Da-Souza's idea to impose fees or other penalties on the owners of these homes to help bring the unused housing stock back online.
Ginther said he isn't familiar with the specifics of Curry-Da-Souza's plan, but he is open to ideas.
"We'll listen to all ideas, and we're always committed to continuous improvement. So that's a lot of what the state of the city address is about, is how can we get better at what we're doing in housing and safety and in transit," Ginther said.
星空无限传媒 asked Ginther who he is supporting in the race between Curry-Da-Souza, Tiara Ross and Jesse Vogel for Columbus City Council's District 7 seat.
Ginther said he has only met with Ross so far and she is the only candidate that reached out to him. Ross was endorsed by all nine members of Columbus City Council.
"(Ross) has been a great asset to the Department of Development and to neighborhoods as a zone initiative attorney in the city attorney's office. So we talked a lot about safety, about health and development issues," Ginther said.
Curry-Da-Souza said she emailed Ginther's office Tuesday to ask if they can chat about her run for city council and how her vision aligns for progress for Columbus. The email was sent about an hour before Ginther spoke to 星空无限传媒.
Ginther said he hasn't made a decision yet, but likely will before the May 6 election.
