Graduate students in the course Housing Policy in the School of Urban & Regional Planning completed a Housing Needs Assessment for the City of North Liberty.

The City Council of North Liberty desired to better understand the nature of housing need and availability in the city. This assessment sought to help answer the question of whether the City is providing for a reasonable mix of housing for potential residents through ongoing execution of the City’s Land Use Plan and Zoning Ordinance. Inputs include a rental and owned housing inventory, an overview of existing development types and demand trends in North Liberty and the metro area, and data from the current Land Use Plan and Zoning Ordinance.

This housing needs assessment provides an analysis of demographic characteristics in North Liberty, as well as review of the characteristics of the existing housing stock and building permit trends. The report also provides an analysis of the market condition for a variety of rental and for-sale housing types and price points, with particular focus on opportunities and challenges that arise from a quickly growing population. Based on this data, the report proposes recommendations to serve housing needs of both current and future residents.

A primary goal of this report was to evaluate North Liberty’s mix of housing options and to discover how it could evolve with any changes to the population demographics. With an understanding of the existing mix of housing types, local government officials, local developers, service providers, and other stakeholders can make informed decisions about future investment and development that responds to the community’s overarching goals laid out in guiding documents, such as the Comprehensive Plan.