West Lafayette assigns point person on tight housing market

Part of city’s newly released strategic plan aims at housing strategy. Plus, Adriana Harmeyer’s first finals match in ‘Jeopardy’ ToC tonight. And why Sen. Alting voted against DEI rollback bill

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

With the release this week of a new 10-year strategic plan for West Lafayette, Mayor Erin Easter started in on one of the recommendations on Tuesday, assigning a housing director for the city.

Chad Spitznagle, who had been West Lafayette’s building commissioner, was sworn in Tuesday to a newly created position Easter advocated during the 2025 budget cycle, as the city deals with housing questions on several fronts.

The assignment?

“One of the first things that we have to do is create a housing strategy that has multiple components,” Easter said. “It can be housing type, it can be affordability, it can be a more geographic plan of where housing and expansion can and should happen and what that looks like. It can be all of those elements together. … It’s a fairly heavy lift, taken together. It’s important that we have a point person really focused on it.”

The move comes at a time when questions about housing loom large in West Lafayette – from dealing with Purdue enrollment growth and what that means for near-campus blocks trying to keep single-family homes in the mix; ongoing debate over zoning changes that would clear the way for accessory dwelling units in residential areas; handling demand coming with up to 1,000 jobs when South Korean chip maker SK hynix builds a facility in the city; to city dreams of future redevelopment of the Levee area between River Road and the Wabash River.