Remarks by Tiara N. Ross
51 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 3
- Play at 47:08
“Are you prepared to help us understand what your engagement plan is for coming year i know in the report you mentioned maybe using the feedback in in quarter three and quarter four to determine what the investment strategy is going to look like so what does quarter one and quarter two look like from an engagement perspective and how can residents be sure to know when when their opportunity is to provide feedback to the department certainly and i think that is chair ross a really important part of how as we expand to the 500 million we have again this opportunity to be expansive in in the…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 48:59
“In June of 26, I know you guys issued a notice of funding availability to the community. Maybe it was different from past years or was this the same process? Yes.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 49:57
“So do you anticipate... I have a few questions with regard to this. First, do you anticipate that folks who don't receive funding awards from the state are still going to have the capacity to fulfill a project just with city dollars, And if not, do we anticipate having to make up those dollars, or is there new funding criteria, scoring criteria that we are using now that we weren't using before? And if there is new criteria, I would like to know what that criteria is.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 52:18
“I have a question around the preservation strategy. So I know a number of our programs are kind of couched within that preservation strategy to include emergency home repair, critical home repair. What's the third one? Just home repair, right? Emergency, critical, and what else?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 52:44
“Roof, thank you. Some of these requirements are different. So I know that emergency home repair, I think, is up to 50% AMI. And then when you get into critical and the other tranche of home repair, it is up to 80% AMI. Have we thought about streamlining those requirements? Are they based on federal designations that we have to use when we move into more of this city-led application process with more of these city dollars that are not necessarily tied to the state? Have we considered what it looks like to maybe streamline this so that we can meet the need?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 54:39
“A question around just how do we determine $500 million in affordable housing bond dollars were necessary and needed? Because it sounds like we're still kind of building criteria around how to access that. We're still very much in the building phase. Was there a thing that led us to believe that $500 million was what we needed, even though we don't necessarily have a plan for how we're going to use it?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 56:39
“Did we, so I have a question. In the innovation bucket, you mentioned financing early stage capital. Are we talking pre-development here? Are we talking something else? And tell me what you envision this looking like.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 58:34
“And I would presume that that is a very critical, innovative tool that would allow for us to broaden accessibility to $2 for our emerging developers, for those developers.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 58:49
“Thank you. Okay, I know we have speakers, so I don't want to ask.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:00:29
“I think so. And that was literally my final question. I know that. Part of the legislation requires council to adopt a resolution to talk about what our priorities are going to be with our bond dollars, with the housing project dollars. I don't know that we're necessarily ready to do that now, but I think that as we receive more information regarding our capacity as a city, regarding how much money we would be able to contribute toward affordable housing, then we would have those details to be able to include in that resolution. And I would just ask for your partnership as we come back to the…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:01:25
“Welcome to Council, Amanda. Or welcome back. I don't know how many times you've been here before.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:04:50
“Thank you, Amanda. Next, I am going to call, it's Brian, last name, is it Coltis? Coltis. Coltis. Brian Coltis from Transit Columbus. Welcome to council.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:10:58
“Thank you, Brian. Will, I'm so sorry. Thank you, Will.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:11:33
“Actually, we wanted to, because we've talked a little bit about this, and I know the report mentions this, so if you could just broadly talk kind of about ideas around this equity model, what that would look like, what our capacity is to do that, and how does it solve comprehensively, or could it solve comprehensively the need?”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:14:16
“OK. Thank you, Director Prosser. Carly Booz from the Affordable Housing Alliance. Welcome back to Council, Carly.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:17:50
“And our last speaker is Johnny Pitts from Dayspring Christian Community Development Corporation. Johnny, are you here? No? I have a note that he may not make it. OK. That is it. We are done with speakers. Hey, guys, this is my first hearing. Thank you, all of you, particularly to the Department of Development for coming and kind of explaining where we were as a city. I think we are, one, very clear that you all understand the complexities of housing and the layered approach and the diversity approach that is necessary to be able to solve”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:18:53
“You were right. I was trying to land this plane.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:18:58
“The people are probably hungry, all kinds of things. Yes, Director Stevens, let me turn it over to you a little bit to talk about Ordinance Number 2326-2026 and the renaming of the Division of Housing.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:20:20
“Awesome. I think for us, the importance is the continued work together because I think we oftentimes talk a lot about housing stability in a silo and we know that all of it has to work together, right? When you think about economic development, you think about jobs, you think about all of those things, they are helping to uplift our residents so that this community becomes more affordable so that folks have the opportunity to thrive where they need to thrive. And understanding where you need housing, where you need jobs, all of those things have to be looked at as one. So I would just…”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 1:23:52
“As always, thank you to my team. Thank you to Council President Hardin's team. Thank you to Auditor Lewis, all of the folks that are helping to make these public hearings possible. We appreciate you all. And with that, we will adjourn or conclude our first affordable housing bond hearing.”
City Council · Sep 22, 2026
- Play at 10:46
“Nothing much, because I know we have a ton to talk about today, but for those of you who live in District 7, we actually will be having a zone-in gallery date coming up September the 24th from 5 to 7 p.m. that I am inviting all of the area commissioners in District 7, so if you're an area commissioner that's here in District 7, you are welcome to come. We will have some more. Those dates will be given as we get closer to them, but the next date for District 7 is September the 24th, 5 to 7, and then we have another one in October”
City Council · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 1:04:06
“Just one question I'm interested in the emerging mixed use district and when you talk about specs for walkability specs for how you determine whether or not you're going to recommend this particular district in an area is that current state or is that aspirational. I ask that just because particularly in District 7, you've got underserved communities that maybe could be walkable, but for lack of investment or infrastructure are not. And are we considering what that could look like and then pairing that with investment in those neighborhoods so that we could potentially get there if there was…”
City Council · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 1:06:42
“obviously now current state, there are places and spaces within the city where this district makes sense already, but that we could be using the recommendation of this district to kind of drive future investment in places where we think this could benefit.”
City Council · Sep 16, 2026
- Play at 1:02:55
“Thank you, Council President. Today, out of Housing, Homelessness, and Building, we have four pieces of legislation on second reading. The first three will result in over $800,000 deployed through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Healthy Homes and Lead Hazard Control. The mission of the Lead Safe Columbus Program is to create lead-safe and healthy affordable housing to prevent the lead poisoning of children and adults in Columbus neighborhoods. This program provides funding to eligible property owners for lead-based paint hazard control, addressing healthy homes,…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 1:05:50
“Thank you, Director Prosser. First ordinance on second read is ordinance number 2296-2026 to authorize the director of the Department of Development to enter into a plan modification of a contractor with SAVCON Construction LLC to extend the contract term end date from December 31st, 2026 to December 31st, 2027, as well as to increase funding in an amount up to $300,000 for lead abatement and healthy home repair services utilizing an existing auditor's certificate established for this purpose. Are there any questions or comments from my colleagues? Seeing none, I move for passage. Banks,…”
City Council · Sep 14, 2026