Gilmer currently faces housing shortages
As housing prices in Gilmer County have risen and the population has grown, discussions over creating a housing plan have becoming increasingly important.
On Thursday, March 12, the Gilmer County Commissioners voted unanimously to develop a new housing plan.
Former Georgia Department of Community Affairs Commissioner Mike Beatty’s company, the Beatty Team, was contracted to produce the plan.
According to the business’s website, it interviews local government, community, business, educational, nonprofit and religious leaders leaders to find out the community’s needs, then creates a “workable, realistic game plan” to achieve good results.
The Beatty Team will look at workforce housing solutions including apartments and cluster homes, Board of Commissioners Chairman Charlie Paris said.
It might recommend more of these, or it might recommend other solutions.
“It is an organization very familiar with north Georgia and mountain communities that we felt could give us a good plan that could fit in,” Paris said.
If the commissioners like its plan, the Beatty Team can also give recommendations on how to get funding for building houses. The funding won’t be through Section Eight, the federal program that provides rental income to low-income households.
Having a plan doesn’t bind the county to any particular course of action.
“It doesn’t commit us to anything in terms of accepting or not accepting the recommendations they make,” Paris said.
The commissioners hope the plan will fit Gilmer’s community, he said.