City/Town: Shoreview

Legislative District: Senate District 40

Party: Republican Party of Minnesota

Candidate responses in italics.

Q1: Housing plays a critical role in economic stability, health, and quality of life for individuals and families. However, disparities in housing continue to affect communities of color, people with disabilities, rural communities, and other historically underserved populations. What meaningful actions should be taken to acknowledge, address, and eliminate housing inequities and advance housing opportunities for all Minnesotans?

Housing affordability is an important issue affecting many Minnesotans. We need to reduce overly burdensome regulations, which add thousands of dollars to building homes and apartments. We also need to reduce property taxes by reducing unfunded mandates from the state which then the costs are passed on to the counties, cities, and school districts who have to cover the costs by increasing property taxes.

Q2: Supportive housing combines affordable housing with support services that help people who face the most complex challenges to live with stability, autonomy, and dignity. Supportive housing provides better outcomes and is fiscally responsible. What will you do to ensure community members who are unhoused or unstably housed receive the support they need to obtain or keep their own homes?

We need to partner with organizations already doing this work and help streamline the process for those needing assistance. We also need to ensure proper financial controls are in place to make sure the people needing the help are actually receiving it and money is not going to fraud. Fraud has been taking money from people who need it most and is unacceptable.

Q3: Homeownership is a way to build generational wealth, provide family and household stability, and support community vibrancy. More and more Minnesotans are priced out of owning a home because of rising housing costs, including purchase price, homeowners’ insurance, and property taxes. What steps will you take to increase opportunities for renters and first-time homebuyers to purchase homes, condos, or cooperative ownership models?

We need to reduce regulatory barriers for building more homes and apartments. By reducing these barriers, which adds significant time and cost to projects, more builders will be willing to invest and build. With more supply, there will be less people competing for the same home/apartment and prices will lower.

Q4: In the last several years, bipartisan action to streamline building of new homes and apartments has passed in several states, including: allowing for multifamily buildings in select commercial areas, limiting parking requirements, allowing smaller homes on smaller lots, and more homes per lot in residential areas like duplexes, fourplexes, and accessory dwelling units. What reforms do you support to modernize zoning to both enable homes to be more affordable statewide and improve city tax bases?

Every community has different needs and knows what the best use of their land is. The state should make it flexible for communities to open up their zoning to allow more housing in areas that make sense for their community. We need more homes/apartments built to meet the rising demand which we have not kept up with.

Q5: Despite housing being the largest cost in the average household budget, housing receives only a small fraction of the total state budget at just 0.3%. A lack of ongoing reliable funding for housing in Minnesota’s state budget has resulted in an undersupply of stable homes affordable to our workforce, our elders, and our families. In recent years, a constitutional amendment for housing, which would dedicate revenues from a sales tax increase to housing, has gained momentum at the legislature. What revenue options will you champion to more adequately meet our need for reliable funding for homes we can afford?

We already have a sales tax that was added a few years ago that goes towards affordable housing and Ramsey county has an added property tax that goes towards affordable housing. Cities also have Tax Increment Financing (TIF) they can use to offset some costs for adding affordable housing units.

Q6: If you have other housing policy priorities, especially specific to your district’s housing needs, please share them here.

I hear from a lot of seniors who would like to downsize but are not able to find places that make financial sense. A lot would like to move into a cooperative condo but there are long waitlists. I hear from developers that there are state laws which make condos more financially risky compared to apartments. I support policies which would help to incentivize more condos to be made. Condos are great for first time buyers to build equity and great for people looking to downsize.