New dashboard spotlights metro housing gaps

A regional dashboard now tracks which metro cities are adding affordable housing — and which are not.

Why it matters: Des Moines leaders have long argued the city carries too much of the region's affordable housing burden while some suburbs do little or nothing.

How it works: The Polk County Housing Trust Fund (PCHTF) dashboard sets a nonbinding affordable housing target for each city equal to 10% of its projected five-year housing growth, spokesperson Matt Hauge tells Axios.

The goal is not a mandate but is meant to help cities understand the scale of affordable housing they could consider as they expand, Hauge said.

The intrigue: The dashboard builds on PCHTF's inventory of federally backed housing and will track new income-restricted projects as they are completed.

State of play: Every city will start at zero because PCHTF began tracking data when the dashboard launched.

The group expects to update the dashboard annually, likely in January.

It is also meeting with cities to help include non-federally funded housing projects that may not be recognized in their initial counts.

Reality check: Des Moines has historically produced and tracked more because it receives its own federal housing allocation and must report it annually.

Most suburbs do not have the same reporting requirements, making comparisons harder.

The bottom line: The dashboard is expected to provide cities with a clearer benchmark and give residents a way to see whether affordable housing is keeping pace with growth.

What we're watching: Whether public scorekeeping pushes more suburbs to support income-restricted housing projects.