Affordability, Accessibility top wish list for local housing
Published 8:30 pm Thursday, November 15, 2018
Polled on what they’d like to change about the Cullman area’s housing market, the 20 or so attendees at Thursday evening’s housing-focused Community Needs Forum zeroed in on the obvious.
Affordable options for first-time owners. Rental costs that don’t absorb a disproportionate amount of income. Housing whose access to local amenities doesn’t price out all but the most affluent of buyers. A regulatory climate that encourages innovation, and building wealth, via new housing options that target the low end of the housing market as well as the high.
Hosted by the Cullman Area Chamber of Commerce, the forum appeared to attract an audience already invested, whether emotionally or materially, in Cullman’s housing future. Populated by realtors, public servants, and a small handful of others passionate about the community’s built environment, the audience might not have represented a true cross section of Cullman’s larger homebuying population, but it would hard for most cost-conscious people to argue with their wish list.
Polled on what type of housing is most urgently missing in the City of Cullman, a majority responded that the city needs more entry-level, single-family homes. Asked which demographic Cullman’s housing market could better serve, a majority replied with young families and blue-collar wage earners. Asked what the local market’s biggest challenges are, the group returned with availability first, followed closely by affordability.
The Chamber says information collected at Thursday’s forum, conducted by JQUAD PLANNING, the Texas-based consulting firm it’s retained to research local housing, will be used to provide “strategies and solutions to the Cullman area’s well-defined housing gap” via forthcoming recommendations from the Chamber’s Housing Task Force.