Affordable housing is vital for economic development, Mayor Butch Berry said at a meeting Mayor’s Task Force meeting on Nov. 10.
“It we don’t have housing, we don’t have people to work at local jobs,” Berry said.
Affordable housing has been an issue for years in Eureka Springs, but the situation has become more critical as property values have gone up, thrusting prices for buying or renting too high for average salaries of jobs in the hospitality industry. The city’s economy is seasonal, meaning fewer jobs are available during the winter months.
The task force has been meeting once a month to discuss how to alleviate the shortage linked to many businesses reporting difficulties finding enough workers. Worker shortages have led to some businesses reducing the number of days per week or hours per day they operate.
The situation is not unique to Eureka Springs, it’s being seen in many areas of the country. But the same mountainous terrain that attracts an estimated 750,000 visitors per year can also make it difficult to get past the first step in building, finding relatively flat land.
“We run into a brick wall finding suitable land for building,” real estate agent and task force member B. Kent Turner, said. “If the land is out of the city and there is no access to water and sewer, that raises the cost of building considerably.”
Turner spoke of innovative housing built in partnership with the University of Arkansas Department of Architecture, including 12 homes made from shipping containers. Turner said something like that could be an incredible project, “But you have to start with land.”
Sandy Martin, who chairs the task force, said they are in the first step to identify tracts of land that could be built on. She requested anyone with available land to contact the mayor’s office. Martin also discussed the possibility of starting a construction skills program at the Eureka Springs High School. The high school previously had a program like that where students learned by constructing one home a year.
Martin said the construction skills school would be helpful in training people for jobs building or helping repair or renovate local buildings. Right now, it has become more difficult to find skilled construction workers due to an aging workforce and not enough young people entering the professions.
Initial concepts that were discussed and summarized in a handout included establishing a community nonprofit for affordable housing, either ownership or rental. Those could range from traditional non-profits that could seek grants to Community Land Trusts. With a CLT, ownership of the land remains with the land trust, which provides tax breaks for owners and helps keep housing affordable both initially and down that road when homes in the CLT are sold.
Turner said it takes time to develop by-laws and obtain non-profit status, so it is imperative to get started. There are also costs for an attorney unless one can be found willing to work pro bono. A board of directors has to be established, and there are filing fees.
Manufactured housing was discussed, but not allowed by zoning and Historic District Preservation guidelines in most residential zones. However, Eureka Springs Historic Preservation Officer Kylee Hevrdejs said that commercial zoning could potentially allow manufactured housing and multi-family housing. She added that while looking for possible building sites, small lots scattered around the city should not be overlooked.
While shipping container houses are a popular trend in some areas, Hevrdejs said caution needs to be taken to make sure the containers don’t have chemical contamination. There is also an issue with cost and logistics of getting the containers from seaports to Arkansas. Turner said that costs for shipping containers have almost doubled recently.
Some of the other issues the task force is considering include:
- Identify grants, funding tools and funders, including the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and HOME, the largest federal block grant to state and local governments designed exclusively to create affordable housing for low-income households.
- State/federal tax incentives and funding.
- Determine housing type and determine the size of homes to build.
- Ownership types including traditional ownership, renting or lease to own.
- Cottages.
- Conversion of existing properties.
- Determine if a nonprofit should/could provide rental assistance.
- Meet with banks and lending sources to discuss plans.
- Identify land with water/sewer and contact owner of property to discuss plan.
- Draft a Developer’s Tool Kit and resource guide that detail benefits for both nonprofit and for-profit developers.
- Draft contracts, agreements, terms and conditions, etc.