Help Gilmer Thrive: A GHCBA Panel Discussion on housing

Business, Community
GHCBA discusses housing

GILMER COUNTY, Ga. — The Georgia High Country Builders Association hosted a panel discussion, entitled Help Gilmer Thrive, on April 19. The six person panel focused on housing issues within Gilmer County and directly responded to questions submitted by citizens.

The Panel

Three guest speakers shared their experiences with the panel and audience.

The panel consisted of six speakers, including Gilmer County Post 2 Commissioner Karleen Ferguson, who is also Co-chair for The Georgia Initiative for Community Housing (GICH). The other panelists included President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Georgia Ryan Willoughby, Carrie Roeger, the Second Vice-Chair of the National Association of Homebuilders 55+ Housing Council, and Austin Hackney, the Executive VP for the Home Builder Association of Georgia. Marshall Aiken, the Director of Development for Beverly J. Searles Foundation, and Betsy L. Sheppard, the founder and CEO of Gilbert & Sheppard, were also on the panel.

Before the panel began answering questions, a video was played for the audience. Notably, it highlighted a poverty rate of over 17 percent in Gilmer County and the need for better housing options. Three guest speakers also shared their personal experiences with the county’s housing issues. Leslie Thomas, President of the Gilmer Historical Society, spoke on her own struggle to find a suitable, affordable home. She shared that she had to leave the county to do so.

The panel

The consequences of not addressing Gilmer County’s housing issues.

The panelists were first asked what residents could expect if the community failed to address the growing problem. Willoughby said housing is a basic need “and when people don’t have access to that, they find it somewhere else. And when they find it somewhere else, it means that businesses close, it means that schools deteriorate, it means that neighborhoods deteriorate, it means the entire community goes down.” He argued that community connectedness, access to social and economic resources, a strong education system, and a robust economy are all contingent upon proper housing.

Noting the large senior community in Gilmer County, Roeger added that failing to handle the situation will create a community that begins to age out: “By that I mean what happens is our young talent, who’s growing up in this community, they love this community and they love where they are, … there’s no place for them to live and there’s no jobs for them, and so the younger demographic of your community starts to move away, and what we have left is an aging population that soon can’t take care of themselves, so it’s a vicious downward cycle.”

Responding to a similar question, Roeger noted that she’s seen the result firsthand in Rome, Georgia, where the school system is starting to suffer from a lack of teachers. Hackney also noted that the current solution of moving further away and commuting is not working, citing the sprawl of Atlanta’s metro area and traffic severity.

Gilmer County’s options for affordable housing.

President and CEO of Habitat for Humanity of Georgia Willougby explained how his organization specializes in smaller starter homes, which he said are “sorely lacking, not just in this community, but across the entire country.” He also stressed the importance of those smaller, more affordable homes: “You’re preventing people from being able to enter into the housing market. Housing has always been, and homeownership specifically, … the number one way to build wealth in the United States of America since our inception. It’s the ownership of land and building a home, and having that stability is the way that you grow wealth and you elevate yourself out of poverty. If you can’t get your foot in that door, you will be stuck in this perpetual cycle of poverty.”

Aiken addressed another option, “tax credit communities”, which he said are often the subject of several misconceptions, “The federal government has a program called the Tax Credit Program. Every single state in the country gets tax credits. It is up to every state how they allocate those tax credits … it’s an extremely competitive process. Basically, the federal government gives every state an allocation of tax credits, and it’s based on the population of that state, it’s a dollar amount per individual, gives each state x number of tax credits. What that does is, as developers, we go to the state of Georgia and we compete with other developers in the state for those tax credits.”

“There’s a big misconception that the tax credit is Section 8 or that it is a subsidy that is given to a private individual,” he explained. “That is not the way the tax credit program works. The tax credit program is the subsidy to the developer. The product that is built is the same. We build the same quality apartment that is a market rate apartment. It charges full blown market rent. The difference with the way we do it, and the way the tax credit program allows developers to do it, is that tax credit award is sold. Those tax credits are sold to an equity investor. An equity investor pays us, the developer … hard cash that is then used to build that property.”

“Because of the tax credit program, the developer is putting 60-70% down on the cost to build that property, therefore our debt is far less. In exchange for receiving those tax credits, the developer agrees to keep that property affordable. It can be affordable, because only 30-40% of that property is actually hard debt, that has to be payed back,” Aiken said.

Addressing another misconception, Aiken noted that the buildings and developers both have to adhere to state standards: “You have to maintain that property to those standards for 30 years. The State of Georgia actually puts boots on the ground every two to three years. They do physical property inspections on every tax credit property in the state.” Ferguson also noted that tax credits are taken away from developers that don’t manage the property correctly.

“That is what the State of Georgia and federal government has tried to incentivize to build affordable housing, because at the end of the day, the product costs the same to build, period. The only way to be able to have affordable rents is to not owe as much debt once you build the property. The tax credit program allows you to do that,” Aiken finished.

Ferguson focused on her experience as Post 2 Commissioner when answering a question about the county’s comprehensive plan. She noted that the 2020-2024 Joint Comprehensive Plan included a community-wide questionnaire that, in part, asked “What type of housing do you think your community needs most?” The response, she said, was an overwhelming 72% for workforce housing. Continuing, Ferguson added, “So even three years ago our community is screaming. They’re desperate for workforce housing.” In another question, respondents showed the most need for small-lot subdivisions, with apartment style housing and downtown lofts as the second and third top answers. “Our community has spoken to us, again, even back in 2019 before we were in the state that we’re in,” She finished.

The potential adverse effects of new affordable housing.

When the panel was asked what unwanted impacts new housing could potentially have, Hackney instead gave his solutions to two concerns he hears regularly. The first concern, he said, is that affordable housing will be neglected, fall into disrepair, and quickly become an eyesore. While he noted that developers and builders must adhere to mandatory construction codes from the state regardless, “local communities have the ability to adopt permissive codes.” Those codes can be adopted to ensure new properties will fit in with the aesthetics of the community, he said. The second concern Hackney said he often hears is the strain it places on community services and resources. “We know that new homes require new services, and when new homes get built, there’s more people on the roads, there’s more students in classrooms, more water using the water and sewer infrastructure. So there’s a lot of services that a county has to provide to pay for these new residents.” However, Hackney noted, the initial investment pays usually pays off for a community. He cited a study that found the first year economic impacts of 100 new single-family houses and an additional 100 new rental apartment units include 6.3 million dollars in taxes and other revenue for the local government.

Aiken added that while crime is another large concern that surrounds affordable housing option, he believes that a developer who becomes involved with the local police department and community from the beginning can combat those concerns.

How zoning can be used to better accommodate affordable housing.

Hackney discussed the general use of zoning and its benefit to a community. He warned against zoning that gets “carried away” and just adds to the expense of a home, such as siding requirements. He suggested that more flexibility when it comes to aspects like housing density can improve the affordability of housing and floated a development impact fee as an option to benefit Gilmer County.

Aiken focused on specific instances in Gilmer County’s zoning ordinances that he said prevents more affordable housing. Multi-family land use is only allowed in R5 zoning destinations, he said, where there is a maximum of four units per acre. Aiken argued that along with restrictive density maximums, “there are other things that are in place that are just hidden things that you don’t really think much about.” He cited a maximum building height of 42 feet, ordinances that require minimum spacing between zoning designations, and even fencing requirements: “You add all of that up in Gilmer County on just the multifamily zoning restrictions, you’ve taken something that’s already hard to build and made it even harder to build, more expensive to build.” Aiken also mentioned specifics from Ellijay’s zoning ordinances, “Multifamily is only allowed in R2 and R3 designations, 40 foot max build height. R2 you’re allowed eight units per acre, R3 you’re allowed two units per acre, you can’t do much with that.” The restrictions, he said, are far from a typical apartment complex that holds around 80 to 100 units on a five acre.”

Commissioner Ferguson responded to Aiken’s criticism of the ordinances, saying that apartments out in the county “doesn’t make sense” because there is no water and sewer further from the city, where terrain is more challenging. She said the commissioners had been aware that changes to zoning ordinances were needed and had met with developers and builders to discuss housing like duplexes, triplexes, and quads in the county: “We were trying to come up with ideas and ways to create some more affordable housing out in the county area that we don’t want to over populate or have that higher density.” Ferguson noted that there are possible areas closer to the city that the county could designate for higher density zoning. Sanford also added that county height restrictions preserve mountain views, a large attraction for the area.

How the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing (GICH) will benefit Gilmer County.

Gilmer County is one of five communities who were chosen to participate in GICH. Ferguson first explained how GICH has already benefited the county, mentioning a grant that the Gilmer Water and Sewer Authority received that allowed them to expand water access to an underserved community near Roundtop Road. She also addressed concerns that being involved with GICH will allow the state or federal government to demand or influence. “We control what programs or what projects we want to do with GICH, they do not come to us and force us ‘Gilmer County you must do this.’ That is not the way it works. Our GICH team is made up of 20 folks from all different people of the community who care about housing, Ferguson said. One major benefit of being a GICH community is access to more opportunity, she noted: “There wasn’t one single GICH community that didn’t get funding, extra grant funding, for housing, and the last time I looked at our budget we didn’t have a whole lot of extra money in our county budget to put towards housing and neither does either of the two cities. So any extra help we can get is very beneficial to our citizens.”

Ferguson also noted that GICH is a three year program, where the county will receive mentorship and resources from their participation. She finished on an optimistic note, “I believe that this community can work together as I’ve seen us do in so many other ways. That we can work together and us decide the route we want to take for our community. That keeps our community rural, keeps our quality of life, but figures out this problem.”

 

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