Today, House Democrats revealed their plan to make housing more affordable for Kentuckians.

It's called Home Nimbus 2.0, and it tackles housing prices from several angles, from reducing red tape for developers to giving tax cuts to renters.

Our Mackenzie Spink tells us why the caucus has more hope for this year's home.

Neighbors effort.

We know the problem.

We have studied it.

Families across the state are feeling it.

And at some point, that conversation that we've been having, folks, has got to turn into action.

And that point is today.

The first part of home, Nimbus 2.0, focuses on building more housing.

House minority Whip Representative Joshua Watkins says investing in the Affordable Housing Trust Fund will result in more options for Kentuckians seeking affordable homes.

We are proposing a $123 million investment over the next two fiscal years into the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, supplemented by a modest increase in deed recording fees and a 1% surtax on short term rentals that take homes out of the market for Kentucky families.

The affordable housing Trust Fund could generate as much as $1 billion in housing development across the state.

Who wouldn't want that?

Another aspect of the large housing proposal is protecting access to housing for individuals.

It would limit corporate landlords that already own 50 or more rental homes from purchasing additional single family homes.

The goal is simple to give our families and individual buyers a fair chance to purchase homes and ensure that more houses remain available for homeownership, rather than being converted into investor owned rentals.

Home Nimbus 2.0 would also ban the use of personal data to manipulate housing prices.

Two people looking at the exact same apartment should not see two different prices, because a computer system thinks that you can pay more for it than the other person can.

Last year's home to US bill, House Bill 583, didn't make it out of the Appropriations and Revenue Committee.

House Democrats say this year's effort has specific measures.

They believe the Republican supermajority will meet them halfway on.

I believe, sincerely, that the majority knows Kentucky needs housing solutions now.

So what we've done is we've brought solutions from the right and the left, things that we know they like, things that we like, and we're going to ask them to sit down at the table with us and decide which one of these things can we do this year so that Kentuckians don't have to wait another day?

Anything that reduces regulations and red tape is popular among the majority and also the Chamber of commerce.

Those are the types of recommendations that we saw a lot of during the Housing Task Force over the last two interim sessions.

So I would expect those would be easy for them to take up.

The Home Nimbus 2.0 proposal was introduced as a floor amendment to House Bill 603 filed by Minority Leader, Representative Pamela Stephenson for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Mackenzie Spink.

Thank you.

Mackenzie.

Senate Bill nine, the priority housing bill from the Republican supermajority, is currently working its way through the House Committee process.

Representative Watkins says there are similarities between that bill and Democrats hope Nimbus 2.0.

He hopes to find middle ground between the two proposals.