Latest news with #FishersCityCouncil
Indianapolis Star
06-05-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
Fishers, Carmel don't think renters deserve single-family homes
Hamilton County cities are scapegoating Wall Street so they can award affluent buyers and existing homeowners with exclusive access to single-family houses and keep away unsavory renters. City officials in Fishers and Carmel argue it's necessary to ban renters from subdivisions where single-family homes hit 10% renter-occupied. It's every American's right to treat shelter as a financial instrument, they argue. If we can't all leverage hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt to purchase a home in hopes that it behaves like a mutual fund, are we even a country? 'That's been a part of the middle class kind of American Dream for a long, long time,' Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness said, per Fox59. "We're just simply trying to put policies in place that would protect it.' First Fishers, now Carmel The Fishers City Council on April 21 unanimously approved a 10% rental cap. Now, Carmel is taking up the crackdown on renters, with City Council President Adam Aasen echoing Fadness. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. 'There are a lot of people who are renting, who want to buy, and they just can't find homes for sale,' Aasen said, per IndyStar. 'When they do find reasonably priced homes ... they're outbid by a corporate investor who wants to turn it into a rental.' The problem, in this view, is that Wall Street firms are treating homes as investments, making it more difficult for individual buyers to … treat homes as investments. Briggs: The Braun-Beckwith plan to abolish Carmel Wall Street isn't the actual target here. Fishers and Carmel are making a qualitative distinction between homeowners and renters as resident classes. Proponents of single-family rental caps say homeowners take pride in their properties while renters neglect them, causing houses to fall into disrepair and dragging down neighborhood values. City officials avoid directly disparaging renters by blaming the ills on out-of-town landlords. This is where the logic gets tortured. The pro-rental cap theory is that investors are making housing unaffordable by bidding up prices and buying all the homes while simultaneously causing property values to fall by letting them go to hell. So, which is it? Are the investors causing prices to go up? Or down? Wrapping your mind around these mutually exclusive claims can feel a little like circling the roundabout at 96th Street and Allisonville Road until you crash. Ban, baby, ban! The most generous interpretation of these 10% rental caps is to view them as a response to bad landlords letting properties fall into disrepair and forcing tenants to live in poor conditions. This is a real problem, and I've reported on it extensively. I can't believe I have to say this next part, but I guess I do. The solution to bad landlords isn't to ban rental housing. That's like saying the solution to drunken driving is to bring back Prohibition. Instead, cities should enforce housing codes and penalize landlords that violate them. Of course, Indiana doesn't let cities do that. When Indianapolis tried to crack down on derelict property owners in 2020, the Indiana General Assembly responded with strict legislation preventing cities from regulating landlords. Briggs: Mike Braun got suckered into a tax-cut promise he couldn't keep Landlords hold all the power in Indiana, and neither tenants nor cities can do anything about it. It is ironic, then, that the Indiana General Assembly in April briefly considered a measure that would nullify rental caps like the one Fishers passed and Carmel is considering. Cities want to ban rental housing because the legislature bans them from regulating landlords, so now lawmakers want to ban cities from banning single-family rentals. That about sums up the relationships between municipalities and state government in Indiana. 10% caps make the housing problem worse Of course, this isn't a story about landlords or Wall Street. Homeowners don't want to share neighborhoods with renters, so Fishers and Carmel are codifying their preference and justifying it by tapping into the moral panic over institutional property owners. This obsession is disingenuous. Based on Carmel's figures, only about 2% of the city's housing stock is owned by institutional investors. Investors are neither juicing nor destroying home values. They're one out of a hundred factors influencing housing economics. If you want to look deeper, then we can also talk about how building costs are rising and interest rates are higher than they used to be. Lending approvals are tightening, making homeownership available only to people with high incomes, down payment cash and excellent credit. As I wrote in March, the average homebuyer age hit 56 last year, according to the National Association of Realtors. Increasingly, the only single-family housing option for young families is renting. Fishers and Carmel are making desirable single-family subdivisions inaccessible to those families — something they might want to be wary of as Hamilton Southeastern Schools is suddenly soliciting students from outside of the district to combat falling enrollment. Housing is unaffordable because we don't have enough of it. It's that simple. Restricting the pool of people who can occupy homes in Fishers and Carmel will reduce the incentive for builders to construct new housing, because there will be fewer people who qualify to live in them, exacerbating the supply problem while pushing renters into communities that value them, like Brownsburg. If you don't want renters, fine. Just say that. Don't ban them and pretend you're doing it to protect the American Dream. The only thing Fishers and Carmel are protecting is homeowner exclusivity.
Indianapolis Star
22-04-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
'We want to protect our neighborhoods': Carmel tries to limit rentals with latest ordinance
Carmel, following in the footsteps of a Hamilton County neighbor, now has plans in the works to regulate the number of rental homes in the city. 'We want to encourage the American dream of single-family home ownership,' said Carmel city councilor Rich Taylor, while introducing the ordinance Monday evening. 'We want to protect our neighborhoods, and we hope to do that through this ordinance.' Carmel's ordinance would limit rental units to 10% of all homes within any subdivision or the City of Carmel as a whole. The introduction of the ordinance came on the same night that Fishers City Council unanimously passed its own rental cap ordinance, and hours after Indiana lawmakers tried to ban such ordinances. In both cities, supporters have said the ordinances are intended to stop institutional investors from purchasing houses at inflated prices and making them rentals. Taylor shared data from the MIBOR Realtor Association that showed just under 10% of Carmel's total housing stock are single-family rental properties. Of those rental homes, more than one in five are owned by large corporate investors. Adam Aasen, president of the city council, said Carmel is taking a proactive approach and addressing the problem before it grows. 'There are a lot of people who are renting, who want to buy, and they just can't find homes for sale,' Aasen said. 'When they do find reasonably priced homes ... they're outbid by a corporate investor who wants to turn it into a rental.' In addition to the limitations on the number of rental homes allowed in Carmel, the ordinance would also create a rental registry. Before it was passed, Fishers' ordinance faced opposition from some homeowners and renters, who were joined by real estate interest groups. At Carmel's meeting Monday, two homeowners spoke in favor of the city's version of the rental cap ordinance. Jack Russell, president and CEO of the OneZone Chamber of Commerce, told Carmel councilors his organization still had work to do in reviewing the city's ordinance before providing formal feedback, but supported Fishers' version. If passed, Carmel's ordinance would require owners of rental homes to register their properties with the Department of Community Services by Jan. 1, 2026. Apartments would not count towards the city's cap on rental homes under the ordinance and would not have to be registered, Taylor said. Other exemptions include: Short-term rental properties Renting to a legal dependent or immediate family member Owner intends to return to live in the property in less than 6 six months, was relocated by their employer more than 50 miles away, inherited the property, is trying to sell the property or is a deployed member of the military Carmel's ordinance was sent to the city council's Finance, Utilities and Rules Committee, which is expected to meet next month. "One of the biggest bedrocks of the American Dream is homeownership, and that is something I will never, ever, ever apologize for protecting,' said councilor Shannon Minnaar. Rental cap ordinances could still face opposition in the state legislature On Monday morning, language that would have nullified rental cap ordinances across the state was floated as an addition to House Bill 1389. Representatives from the Indiana Association of Realtors, Indiana Apartment Association and Indiana Builders Association, spoke in favor of that language during a conference committee on the bill. But bill author Rep. Jim Pressel, R-Rolling Prairie, said Tuesday morning the language was already removed from the larger bill. 'Sometimes you're testing the water just a little bit,' Pressel explained in an interview with IndyStar. Taylor, a sponsor of Carmel's ordinance, said he expects efforts to nullify the rental cap ordinances to resurface during the legislative session next year. 'We're going to do what we think is right, regardless,' Taylor said. 'I understand these special interest groups have their own constituents to speak out for. We're looking out for the residents of the City of Carmel.'
Indianapolis Star
22-04-2025
- Business
- Indianapolis Star
Fishers council approves rental caps as legislature moves to override action
The Fishers City Council unanimously passed a first-of-its kind ordinance that restricts the number of homes that can be rented in subdivisions, in a move to stop institutional investors from purchasing houses at inflated prices and making them rentals. The 9-0 vote came after real estate interest groups made a last-minute push to nullify the ordinance in the Indiana General Assembly. Lawmakers attached to an unrelated bill a provision that would prohibit cities from limiting rentals. The surprise addition to House Bill 1389, which was discussed in a conference committee Monday morning, would need lawmakers from both chambers to sign off on it before a vote. At a packed Fishers City Hall meeting, residents were allotted 30 minutes to speak about the rental cap, with more than half saying they favored it but a sizable number clapping for those who opposed it. Those in support said they'd seen their subdivisions degraded by investors who paid high prices for lower valued homes, rented them, and neglected their maintenance, 'My job is to sell homes to people who want to buy them in desirable locations in the community,' said Fishers Realtor Jennifer Rice. 'All these rentals make neighborhoods undesirable. You have to be in the field to see this.' Opponents said the ordinance illegally limited what homeowners could do with their hard-earned property. 'It is not your right to say if I move next year…I can't rent my home,' said Marti Brown, a Sandstone neighborhood resident. 'It is baloney. It is un-American.' The administration of Mayor Scott Fadness and council worked one and a half years on the plan to address the local and national trend of outside investors gobbling up homes. Fadness said the rental cap would help keep lower-priced houses in the market because those are the ones most often targeted by Wall Street investors. That will give first-time buyers, who are typically younger with less wealth, a chance to own a home in Fishers and build equity. The ordinance would also establish a registry for landlords to make them more responsive to renters or city complaints. Opponents said Fadness and the council's work is outdated because the surge in institutional investors has subsided: the last one sold to an outside firm in Fishers was January of 2023. They also said it could severely limit the number of rentals available in county that already has an huge shortage and needs them for a growing number of lower-wage service workers. 'As we have shown, market conditions have changed and institutional investors have sold more homes over the last two years than they have purchased," said Chris Pryor, chief advocacy officer for the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors, at the meeting. 'This is a trend that is likely to continue.' MIBOR and the Indiana Association of Realtors opposed the rental caps while the One Zone Chamber of Commerce, covering Hamilton County, supported the ordinance and called it 'thoughtful and strategic approach to ensuring long-term neighborhood stability and housing market balance.' Fadness said the corporate buyers could be back in the future and called the measure forward looking. 'What it means for the long-term ability of young people is to build wealth,' he said at the meeting. 'We want a viable stock of housing for starter homes.' Most of the councilors, explaining their votes beforehand, said they have been swamped with calls from constituents in favor. Councilor Todd Zimmerman said the city was taking a bold stand in the face of monied outside interests. Other cities have addressed the problem in various ways but Fishers officials found none that have used rental caps. 'As a nation, if somebody doesn't take a stand who will?' Zimmerman asked.' At some point somebody has to take a stand when there is land being bought up by foreign and domestic entities who are taking way the livelihood and opportunity for people to build their wealth within their homes, within their families.' Fishers' 240 subdivisions have varying levels of rental rates, most lower than 10% but about 50 have rental rates much higher, some reaching 40%. But Vare said some of the city's numbers on high rental rates in misleading. For example, of the 17 Fishers neighborhoods exceeding 30% rentals, 11 are condo or townhome communities, including three that were recently built as for-sale units. While some homeowners associations set their own rental caps, others don't address it all and still others don't bother because covenant rules usually require unreachable voting majorities The ordinance has several exemptions for people who want to rent even though it would exceed neighborhood's cap, including having had the house on the market for at least six months. Other exemptions include: Job relocation Renting to family members or legal dependents Deployed military Selling the property will cause undue burden. The ordinance will take effect Jan. 1, 2026.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Fishers' rental cap is another way to keep out people with low incomes
Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness in 2023 touted the $16 million Geist Waterfront Park as the city's last opportunity to create public access to Geist Reservoir, the man-made lake best known for luxury waterfront homes. In an odd way to promote public access, the city charged non-Fishers residents $50 to park their car there. Fadness claimed the parking fee was necessary to limit summer crowds, ensure safety and prioritize the limited parking for Fishers taxpayers. But this was not the truth. Attendance at the new park was a fraction of what the city estimated that first summer season. There was never a capacity issue in the parking lot. Clearly, the real purpose of the inflated parking fee was to discourage the people who can't afford it. Today, Fishers is trying to discourage the people who can't afford it from living in Fishers. Fadness is proposing a rental cap that would limit the number of rental properties in Fishers. This policy would be the first of its kind in the country. By limiting rental supply, this policy could inflate the cost of tenants' rent. Why would a growing Indiana suburb with a high demand for housing want to restrict rental supply? In an odd way to address a housing shortage, the rental restriction would apply to townhome and condo neighborhoods in addition to single-family homes. Why would a community lock a highly desired type of housing out of the most conducive neighborhoods? Fadness' rental cap proposal has been quietly presented to citizens as a benign 'rental registration program' – his solution to encourage homeownership, protect the character of residential neighborhoods, eliminate blight and address institutional investors who purchase single-family homes. But this is not the truth. Briggs: Fishers' attack on investor-owned homes will lock out families The last time a Fishers single-family home was purchased by an out-of-state institutional investor was over two years ago. Home ownership in Fishers is already 'exceptionally high' and exceeds national and state averages, according to the city's own housing study. Of course, exterior maintenance issues are not exclusive to rental homes. There are city code enforcement procedures and a fine system in place to ensure that all Fishers homes are maintained, owner-occupied and rentals alike. Fishers is branded as a 'smart, vibrant and entrepreneurial' community and is a desirable place to live. When I was a Fishers City Council member in 2023, I stated my opposition to the $50 parking fee. I said, "My strong concern is that it sends a message to people outside of Fishers that they are unwelcome here.' Today, I state the same opposition to a new proposed Fishers rental cap policy, which would have a much greater negative impact if approved. Fishers residents can choose to oppose this rental cap or not. They can attend the Monday council meeting and let the decision-makers hear their opinions. But they deserve to know the truth. Fishers is trying to discourage the people who can't afford it from living in Fishers. Jocelyn Vare is a renter and a Fishers resident for over 25 years. She is a former at-large member of the Fishers City Council and former member of the City of Fishers Housing Task Force. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Fadness' rental cap idea follows Geist Waterfront Park fees | Opinion
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Foes of Fishers' plan for rental caps in subdivisions gain allies ahead of vote. What to know
Fishers' first-of-its-kind proposal to curb large corporate investors from buying swaths of single-family homes and converting them to rentals is drawing local and national opposition as a vote on the measure looms. Some homeowners and renters in Fishers have been joined by real estate interests in pushing back against an ordinance that would limit the number of homes for rent in subdivisions to 10% and establish a rental registry for the homeowners. They contend the ordinance unduly reduces the number of rentals, restricts property owners' rights and could depress property values. 'The truth is, Fishers has a proven rental housing shortage and already has an extremely high level of homeownership,' said former City Councilor Jocelyn Vare, a Democratic critic who has organized meetings with residents. 'I don't know why the city would go down this path so brazenly.' The administration of Mayor Scott Fadness and Fishers City Council worked one and a half years on the plan to address the trend of outside investors gobbling up homes, often paying above market value in cash, and drastically changing the balance of renters to owner-occupied homes in some neighborhoods. Fadness said the rental cap would help keep lower-priced houses in the market because those are the ones most often targeted by Wall Street investors. That will give first-time buyers, who are typically younger with less wealth, a chance to own a home in Fishers and build equity. 'Our concern is you can no longer buy a home any longer in Hamilton County for under $450,000, $500,000, 'Fadness said. 'So if you want to attract the next generation or young people and they want to buy a starter home, they can't because investor bought so many to rent.' The ordinance would also prevent neighborhoods defined by cul-de-sacs from being dominated by rental units, which change their character for buyers who prefer neighbors who own their homes. 'I think people buy homes in single-family neighborhoods in a suburban environment with an expectation that that is the experience they are going to have, so I think there is component for sure,' Fadness said. But opponents said Fadness is overlooking one crucial and glaring point; the surge in institutional investors has subsided. In fact the last home purchased by one in Fishers was January of 2023, and the big firms are now selling the homes they bought. 'Market conditions have changed dramatically with interest rates' changing, said Chris Pryor, chief advocacy officer for the Metropolitan Indianapolis Board of Realtors, which opposes the rental cap. 'So in many ways we think they are late to the game with this policy.' Vare said that's enough of reason to call the measure back for a fresh review of the caps, though she favors the rental registration. 'This was the whole rationale for this change in the first place and that isn't even valid anymore,' Vare said. Fadness acknowledged the investor buying spree has eased but that doesn't mean it couldn't come roaring back. 'If there was a hospitable market for it before I don't know why there couldn't be again,' Fadness said. 'And I think (if it does), this just ensures we will not get neighborhoods that are just saturated with rental products.' Fishers found that there are 2,522 single-family home rentals in the city, or 8% of all the single-family homes, with about 25% of those owned by institutional investors. A recent study found that corporate investors own more than 40,000 single-family rental homes in five Central Indiana counties. Pryor said there are more fundamental reasons for MIBOR's opposition to the rental cap: it intrudes on a homeowner's right to do what they please with their property. 'We think it violates core property ownership rights while it artificially interferes with the free market by limiting rentals and will have unintended consequences such as increased rental rates,' he said. 'We realtors have a long history of protecting property rights.' In addition, he said, 'it takes an option off the table for many people (single family rentals) at a time when purchasing a home is harder than ever.' Indiana Association of Realtors also oppose the rental caps while the One Zone Chamber of Commerce covering Hamilton County supports the ordinance and called it a ' thoughtful and strategic approach to ensuring long-term neighborhood stability and housing market balance,' in a recently published letter. Fishers' 240 subdivisions have varying levels of rental rates, most lower than 10%, but about 50 have rental rates much higher, some reaching 40%. Vare said some of the city's numbers are misleading. For example, of the 17 Fishers neighborhoods exceeding 30% rentals, 11 are condo or townhome communities, including three that were recently built as for-sale units. While some homeowners associations set their own rental caps, others don't address it all and still others don't bother because covenant rules usually require unreachable voting majorities. Foes of the caps are increasing pressure ahead of a possible vote by the City Council next Monday. Last week, two unsigned full-page ads appeared in the suburban Current newspapers urging action against the ordinance and text messages were sent to Fishers residents urging them to register their opposition. 'The Fishers City Council is looking to control who you can sell your home to,' the message read. 'Meaning you may be required to accept a LOWER offer on your home because of government overreach.' The texts, sent by the Hoosier Homeowners Alliance, a political organization with large financial contributions from the National Association of Realtors, prompted Fadness to issue a statement on the Fishers website. 'Yesterday, residents received intrusive and misleading messages from a national special interest group opposing our efforts to preserve the opportunity for families to own their homes and maintain our neighborhoods' vibrancy,' it read. 'I apologize for any confusion these messages caused, and in response, we have put together additional information that addresses the opposition's statements.' The ordinance has several exemptions to allow people to rent out their homes even when doing so would exceed neighborhood caps, including having had the house on the market for at least six months. Other exemptions include: Job relocation Renting to family members or legal dependents Deployed military Selling the property will cause undue burden. The City Council will discuss the ordinance at a meeting Monday night and public hearing and could vote on it afterward. The council could also delay the vote to another meeting. Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418. Email at and follow on X/Twitter @john_tuohy. This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Foes of Fishers' rental caps in subdivisions gain allies ahead of vote
