Conflicting viewpoints were voiced during the public comment portion of last week’s town hall meeting on the subject of affordable housing.
One view, given by an attendee, is that parts of the Georgia Conservancy’s presentation on Gilmer County’s housing situation are forms of socialism that will raise taxes for existing homeowners.
Expressed by another attendee, the other stance is that something has to be done to provide some kind of lower-priced housing for working people so they can afford to live and work here.
Both opinions received applause from different members of the roughly 100-person audience gathered at the Ellijay Elementary School Auditorium Monday, Dec. 4.
The purpose of the town hall was to present data from a housing study, which was requested by the Gilmer Initiative for Community Housing (GICH) panel. That group is made up of local representatives enrolled in a three-year program sponsored by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, which offers counties possible solutions to their housing-related issues. The Georgia Conservancy, an Atlanta-based group that promotes sustainable growth and natural resource conservation, conducted the housing study.
While discussing results of the study with a PowerPoint presentation, Luben Raytchev, Georgia Conservancy Community Design Lead, also directed preprepared questions to audience members. The questions could be answered in real time with a cellphone poling app or on paper.
The majority of those who answered the questions believed that agriculture is the most important feature of the local landscape that needs to be protected going forward.
Gilmer is still a heavily agricultural county, but that could change depending on the future decisions of landowners and developers, noted Raytchev.
“You might see some change depending on if landowners sell (their land) to developers. Agriculture is very important to the county’s makeup and the county economy, so that might be something you want to continue to protect in the future. There are mechanisms for you to do so, one of them being planning for how you want to grow in the future,” he added.
As for how local governments should encourage affordable housing while preserving Gilmer’s “community character,” the top two responses were allowing either rent-controlled affordable housing for service workers and civil servants or small homes or apartments in East Ellijay.
Not surprisingly, 94 percent of those who responded preferred that local governments focus new residential development in already developed areas where water, sewer and transportation infrastructure are in place.
“About 63 percent of your county is in areas (where) there are some factors that make them less desirable for development. You’re a mountainous county, and it’s difficult to develop where there are steep slopes. Finding a suitable plot of land for some developments is hard here,” said Raytchev.
The types of housing those who responded prefer to be built included single family homes, apartments, townhomes, accessory (guest home) dwellings and second floor apartments.
“There’s all these other options, but we typically think of the two extremes,” said Raytchev. “We’re used to seeing mostly single family homes or large multi-tenant developments, but there is all this housing in between. We’re not limited in our creativity or skills and abilities, but we are limited by our local regulations (and if) the zoning codes prevent us from building these things.”
As for the actual housing study, which is still being completed, Raytchev said the county’s average home sale price rose almost 200 percent from 2018-2022. Between 2021 and 2022, the average sale price increased by almost 18 percent, he added.
“The average sale price in 2022 was more than $400,000. In 2018, it was closer to $200,000,” Raytchev said. “Housing is expensive everywhere right now. It’s not something that’s exclusive to one place, but in Gilmer County it’s been especially bad. The issue is also not just is there enough housing, but is there housing at the right price point and how can we create more of that.”
Raytchev said retail, food services and manufacturing account for almost 60 percent of the local employment pool. With
“affordable payment” defined by 30 percent of an average salary being put toward housing, most options in the county are not attainable for that large group of people working here, he noted.
“If you look at what 60 percent of the employment pool is, what is affordable for them on a monthly level is in the $500-$700, maybe $900 (range). (At $400,000), it would be very hard at those incomes to purchase a home in Gilmer County,” he added. “You’re also probably not going to find rent that costs less than $1,000 a month. If people want to live in the community, they’re probably paying more than they can sustainably afford in the long run.”
The GICH panel plans to distribute the results of the housing study to the leaders of city and county governments. Having a county housing study performed is also a prerequisite for some grants, which can be used to reduce housing construction costs.
Raytchev said the final version of the study should be finished and delivered by the end of this week.