Happy Holidays from everyone at the Greater Ohio Policy Center!
We are grateful for colleagues and partners whose commitment to building revitalized communities in Ohio drives us. Thank you for helping GOPC accomplish so much in 2025!
Housing was a major focus for our work in 2025.
In March, GOPC and the Ohio REALTORS released Housing Ohio, a toolkit designed to increase housing production throughout the state. Since its release, the plans have been downloaded 650 times and 70 communities have expressed interest in developing a pre-approval program.
We are proud of the technical expertise we provided to communities n Mahoning and Trumbull Counties with our Housing Strategies report, which is increasing housing options for all residents. We also assisted the Montgomery County Land Bank in developing a five-year strategic plan to guide future decision making.
We also did a lot on behalf of legacy cities in 2025.
We completed a Toolkit for Identifying Equitable Real Estate Development strategies, Emphasized the importance of Ohio’s legacy cities in the state and national GDP; and partnered with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, to offer legacy cities proven methods that strengthen community planning with the Exploratory Scenario Planning tool kit.
GOPC Staff Celebrate the Holidays at Otherworld Columbus. Seater L-R: Aaron Clapper, Alison Goebel, Casey Terry. Standing L-R: Erica Spaid-Patras, Jason Warner, Meg Montgomery
Our quest to unlock the potential in Ohio’s brownfields continued in 2025.
The 2025 budget cycle saw Ohio lawmakers once-again invest significant resources into the clean-up of vacant, blighting brownfield sites for the next two years. All together, since 2021, Ohio has investing nearly $1 billion in this work, and GOPC is proud to be the recognized champion for brownfield advocacy.
This continued in August when we released “Building on the Brownfields Momentum: An Analysis of the Brownfield Remediation Program Over the Past Four Years (2021-2025)”. The white paper also highlights the importance of ongoing advocacy for the continued investment in a statewide brownfield grant program.
Thank you to Ohio EPA for helping us host another successful conference for practitioners and communities with brownfields. We look forward to once again hosting the conference in 2026!
We also appreciate the coverage of our work around the state with media coverage of our work including brownfields, housing, and transportation.
And we continued to champion a modern transportation and mobility network in Ohio in 2025
This year, we published our second Active Transportation planning guide building on the case studies presented in a previous volume. These improvements are making roads safer for pedestrians and cyclists, and creating more vibrant and welcoming neighborhoods.
2026 promises to be another banner year for GOPC. In addition to the state Brownfield Conference in May, we look forward to hosting our first Active Transportation Conference in the early fall. Early planning work is already underway, so be sure to sign-up now to know when details become available.
We will also update our public policy agenda in 2026 ahead of the election of a new governor and state legislature. This new agenda will continue our work to create a policy climate that allows communities to thrive for statewide economic growth and revitalization.
Be sure to follow our online bill tracker, and social media accounts, including Blue Sky, Twitter, Threads, Facebook, and LinkedIn, as well as our blog for the latest on where revitalization-related policies stand.
If you too believe in vibrant, revitalized places, consider supporting GOPC with an end-of-year contribution.
All the best for 2026,
Alison Goebel & the GOPC Team