This study session of the Vandalia City Council was held on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, starting at 5:30 PM. The meeting featured a detailed housing market presentation, discussion of the current council meeting agenda (assessments), a preview of the February 2, 2026 council meeting agenda, and several discussion items including sidewalk trip hazard removal, a zoning variance, Mulberry Road annexation, and a review of citywide policy goals. The council also voted to enter executive session.
All right, it's 5 30, so we're gonna go ahead and get started with this evening's study session. Uh the first item on the agenda is a presentation from Mr. Graham. So I welcome you to the podium. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. So I conducted a Vandalia housing report here, and we'll jump right into it. So the first part we looked at population trends based on race. So most of the categories, white, black, American Indian, Asian, Pacific Islander, all had decreases from 2014 through 2025. However, the other category did see a decent increase from about 167 to 1041. And a part of that is too is that people can now choose multiple races and with multiple races you now fall under the other category. So population trends for uh Vandalia tip Huber Heights here. So from 2020 through 2010, Vandalia did see a population increase of about 600. Tiff City grew by about 400, and during that time, Hubert Heights had about a negative 100 population growth. And from 2010 through 2020, Vandalia had a negative population growth of 37. Tip City grew by about 600, and Huber Heights grew by about 5,000. The number of households, and when it says households, this can be anything from new builds of vacant homes being filled up, rentals being filled, or even like large homes being split up or ADUs being added to the property. So from 2000 through 2010, Vandalia saw a number of households grow by about 300, and then by about another 300 from 2010 through 2020. And this is pretty similar to what Tip City had as well from about a 300 household growth and from 2000 through 2010, and another similar growth from 2010 through 2020. Hubert Heights, on the other hand, had a similar one as well from 2000 through 2010, but had a significant growth in households from by a little more than 2,000 from 2010 through 2020. And Butler Township from this time as well, from 2000 through 2020, only saw about 100 households grow. So we go on to the next slide here. So the number of individuals per household from 2000 through 2020 for TIFF City, Huber Heights, Vandalia, and Butler Township have all decreased. So the from 2000 through 2020. TIP went from 2.53 down to 2.45. Huber from 2.66 to 2.55, and Butler Township 2.54 to 2.43, showing that more people are preferring to live in their separate households now versus all living as like essentially one big bigger unit in one single household. Estimated number of households by income. So from 2014 through 2025, the number of lower income individuals increased, or actually had a decrease from uh 2014 through 2025, and there the biggest increase happened from individuals making 100,000 or more from 2014 through 2025. And I'm going to read this part verbatim because it's important. While the cumulative cost of living has risen by roughly 38% since 2014, Vandalia's shift towards a higher income demographic has been even more aggressive. The number of households earning 100k plus has nearly doubled, meaning the majority of our residents have seen an income growth that significantly offsets the rising cost of goods and services. Conversely, for the lower income residents, the real value of their earnings has eroded. A household earning $35,000 a day effectively has the same purchasing power that $25,300 did in 2014, a 27% drop in real money. This widening gap highlights while the city is becoming wealthier on average, there is an increasing pressure on the lower to middle class residents to afford housing and essential compared to a decade ago. So right here we have estimated total households and households with children. So from 2014 through 2023, the total number of households did increase. So the census data pulls information from 1939 or earlier through current. So from permit data here, from 2010 through 2019, we had 33 structures that were built. And currently, from 2020 till now, we have had 77 structures built or 238 units from 2020 through now. So Redwood is under phase two right now, and that's actively under construction. Towns of Castle Grove is pending final approval with their final plan. From 2020 through now. Yep, and just kind of with all the numbers here, I kind of threw some statistics together. So with everything that's been done so far and what everything that's projected to be done, it's estimated that we'll get about 614 new units. And if we base that on the current average number of individuals per household, we'll get an estimated population growth of 1,370 individuals. If you add that together from what we currently had in 2020, we'll have about 1,650 1,000 16,579 new individuals and or total individuals in Vandalia. And then if you look at number of estimated households with children, we'll have 124 more. And the estimated population with individuals from zero to 19 will be a 358 increase, or roughly a little less than 20 per age group. Yes. Any questions or anything I can clarify on?