Photo looking up into dome of capitol building in Pierre, SD
Advocacy

2026 Housing Plan accomplishments

  • Justin Bentaas
  • June 24, 2022

The City of Sioux Falls’ 2026 Housing Action Plan is a multifaceted plan split into five different categories:

  1. Land
  2. Design & Building Standards
  3. Infrastructure
  4. Workforce
  5. Public Incentives and Partnerships.

On Tuesday, City staff presented an update on their achievements thus far. Here is what they have completed:

Land
  • Collaborate with Regional MSA communities
    • The City provides sanitary sewer treatment to Brandon already
    • In the process of connecting the City of Tea to our wastewater collection system
    • Undertaken in cooridoor studies and have future ones planned
  • Proactively assemble land for redevelopment and for moving existing homes
    • Have worked with non-profit organizations such as SECOG to sell land for affordable housing developments.
  • Identify opportunities for infill development
    • The city continues to look for land (city-owned or not) that might be ripe for redevelopment and have some great examples to show for it.
  • Leverage federal funds and public incentives to revitalize core neighborhoods
    • The neighborhood safety grant program gives $5,000 to qualified homeowners to make improvements to their properties.
    • The City has processed and approved over 82 applications
Design & Building Standards
  • Evaluate opportunities to lessen impact of 2021 Building Code Updates
    • City staff goes through an exhaustive process of reviewing the codes with the home builders association and the multi-housing association so they make sure they are implementing codes that make sense that allow for reasonable return on investment.
  • Review current design standards such as rolled curbs and street width reduction
    • The engineering department reduced the required street width for major collectors earlier this spring.
  • Evaluate and pilot low-impact development options
    • The engineering department found alternatives for curb and gutter in Milard Acres which is a Habitat for Humanity development.
    • They are actively trying to find less expensive development requirements for affordable housing.
Infrastructure
  • Complete two sanitary sewer basin studies in the Fall of 2021
    • Both have been completed. One in the southeast and the other in the west.
Workforce
  • Provide support for STI programming (carpentry certificate example)
    • Council increased the amount of money contributed to STI from $150K to $200K.
    • This money primarily focuses on their classrooms to careers program.
    • It priorities first generation, low-income students and tries to get them into a high demand field.
Public Incentives & Partnerships
  • Develop TIF guidelines to support housing development
    • The City has developed those guidelines and are already in negotiations with a developer to use the new TIF guidelines for affordable housing.
  • Create Housing Fund to provide flexible options for workforce housing
    • City Council put $6.5 million into the fund during the last funding session.
    • They’ve also recently updated the amount homes are eligible for.
  • Evaluate partnership program for costs associated with moving existing homes
    • This has become a major component of the City’s revitalization of core neighborhoods.
    • They are working with numerous partners who have homes surrounding their organizations that are eligible for this program.
    • Implemented a workflow to make the process more smooth.
PrevNext