Columbus voters can expect to see a $1.9 billion bond package for improvements in neighborhoods on the November ballot.
“Biggest bond package we’ve ever put on the ballot? 1.9 billion? Yes,” Mayor Andrew Ginther said. “And the city is the biggest it’s ever been, too. So, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
The package includes $250 million for safety and health, $250 million for parks and recreation, $400 million for public services, $500 million for public utilities and $500 million for neighborhood development and affordable housing. Each will appear as a separate bond issue before voters in the November general election.
Ginther and Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin introduced the bond package on Thursday, standing just outside a construction site for Fire Station 36 on Central College Road in New Albany. Ginther said that the site is only possible because of $17 million in voter-approved approved bond-funding.
Ginther touted the importance of bonds as a low-cost borrowing option for Columbus.
“This strategy has saved the city tens of millions of dollars in recent years,” Ginther said.
If approved, the ballot measures would allow the city to sell bonds to investors and use the proceeds to finance infrastructure improvements. The city would then repay the debt from a special fund created with a quarter of the income taxes it collects.
"This is not about numbers. It's about neighborhoods. It's streets that we drive on. It's the water that we drink, the homes that we live in, and the services that we all depend on every day,” Hardin said.
The bonds are slated to fund police and fire facilities and equipment, new community centers, parks and pools, and water and sewer infrastructure, and road resurfacing.
This would be the third time Columbus voters were asked to support affordable housing. Voters approved smaller housing bonds in 2019 and 2022. Ginther said those supported the construction of more than 4,000 income-qualified affordable rental units, including a few hundred supportive housing units for people who previously had experienced homelessness.
“Bond have been used for places like Moby Place, Sinclair, Bretton Woods II, Topiary Park. The $500 million afforded by a housing bond would keep this progress going,” Ginther said.
Hardin called that potential money, “critically important.”
“We will be able to preserve existing affordable units, rehabilitate aging housing stock and construct the new homes our community so desperately needs,” Hardin said.
Hardin said the affordable housing bond will be discussed at a Housing Committee and Homeless and Building Committee meeting on Tuesday. Other bonds will be discussed at later hearings.
