Kentucky needs 200,000 new homes, and a committee of state lawmakers has spent two years looking for solutions.

This week, Kentucky's housing Task Force issued its final recommendations before the next legislative session that starts in January.

Our June Lefler has more on what that task force is saying in tonight's legislative update.

The committee offered 14 housing legislative remedies.

The boldest one being an injection of state dollars into new housing development funds.

Is coming into this budget year.

We've got some tough decisions to be made, and I think it behooves all of us on this board that knows the challenges of housing, to advocate for, whatever level of government involvement you think needs to occur here.

According to the final report, the state could create a new fund for residential housing and infrastructure.

The report doesn't recommend a dollar amount, but mentions Indiana started its fund with $100 million.

The money could be one time dollars that developers pay back in the form of loan payments.

Everybody around us, incentivizes housing except for, you know, except for Kentucky.

So we've got to figure out, how are we going to play in that ball game?

We want to compete in economic development.

We're lowing our personal income tax to be more competitive, but if folks don't have a place to live, then they're not going to come work in Kentucky and live in Kentucky.

Other funding solutions include increasing home buying fees that go towards the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, expanding the rehabilitation tax credit for abandoned homes, and offering a state low income housing tax credit to match the federal one.

The committee's other recommendations are around state and local government regulations, which wouldn't require funding.

We've got to have good laws, local or state laws, whichever one they might be to, help government do what it needs to do, but yet get out of the way of developers and encourage development.

Specific changes include reducing requirements for parking spaces and multiple staircases for multifamily units for single family homes.

That could be allowing smaller lot sizes.

This Louisville Democrat warns of too much deregulation, specifically around reducing energy efficiency standards.

Some of the more sustainable building practices are relieving energy costs for our constituents.

So I just want to caution that while it may make, sense in the short term to place a moratorium on building codes, I'm really concerned about the affordability of maintaining the home after it's built.

However, he and other lawmakers say the recommendations are promising.

A lot of.

What we've talked about this entire summer, largely is bipartisan in effort.

The general Assembly begins session on January 6th.

For Kentucky edition, I'm Jen Leffler.