Updated housing needs study on the horizon to better inform developers
Photo by Joanne Beck
If local officials were to play on that old game show where the announcer would whisper the special word of the moment, it would most undoubtedly be “housing.”
And the clues given would be low income, market rate, owner occupied, rental, and, according to County Planner Felipe Oltramari, unmatched.
It is that current necessity that has prompted a Genesee County housing needs assessment and market analysis.
“We may have enough low-income housing, but we may not have enough for young professionals or we may not have enough rental units versus owner-occupied units, so there’s different sectors in the housing market, where you basically have to match that to the population you’re either trying to attract through economic development projects like STAMP or that are currently here,” he said after Monday’s Public Services meeting. “One of the examples we hear all the time from municipalities is there aren't enough senior patio homes so that people can downsize in their community. So there may be some in Rochester, Buffalo, or in Batavia, but there may not be any in Elba, or in Oakfield. And people want to stay in their community so they can still go to their same church and do all those things.”
Another example he gave was of senior citizens not wanting to maintain their four- or five-bedroom homes, but how those larger properties might then better serve young families that are looking to own a house.
“So those kinds of different sectors all need to be matched up. And basically what the study does is identify all those things, and makes it available to potential developers that could go and say, oh, you know, all that research is done for us, it's a lot easier to come in and invest,” he said. “So that's why it's a powerful tool because you basically do a lot of work for those developers that are looking to build those types of things that we might need. And then those projects can happen.”
The last such housing needs assessment and market analysis was done in 2018, but due to COVID, the data used was from 2015, and since then, “our market has really changed,” Oltramari said. Property owners know what he’s saying is true: “A lot has changed. Anybody who’s been out there and looking at their assessments has noticed, home prices have really changed in our county.”
“So we want to make sure we’re up to date,” he said. “Developers might come in and say, ‘yeah, that’s nice (that you did one in 2018), you have one but it’s not up to date. So we need to know what’s going on right now.”
The Public Service Committee agreed. It voted to move the request on to Ways & Means and then to the county Legislature for a final vote that Genesee County acknowledges that an update to the Housing Needs Assessment and Market Analysis is needed due to the rapidly changing nature of the market.
Genesee County solicited proposals from vendors to undertake the study through a Request for Proposals issued in July, and a vendor selection committee made up of representatives from the County Manager’s Office, Planning Department, Genesee County Economic Development Center, and the Genesee Region Housing Initiatives Committee, reviewed four separate proposals.
The group recommended Urban Partners of Philadelphia, Penn., at a cost not to exceed $50,000, for the job. The company had good reviews, and the City of Batavia and Batavia Development Corporation also gave input about the selected vendor, Oltramari said.
Batavia city officials recently issued their own appeal for housing initiatives in the form of grant funding from $10,000 to $50,000 for individuals or groups interested in building or rehabbing a rental or owner-occupied development of some type in their quest to obtain more market-rate housing.
A snippet from Urban Partners' website states, “We prepare detailed analyses of housing markets that include supply and demand analysis, forecasting of future housing needs, incentive programs to provide unmet demand, and affordable housing needs analysis.
“Our work usually involves the engagement of community stakeholders in formulating housing priorities,” the site states. “We also assist specific housing developments in identifying target markets and planning production strategies.”
If approved by the Legislature, the study is to begin in November and take approximately nine months to complete.
The $50,000 contract is to be funded by sales tax proceeds. A $50,000 grant funding request was made to Senator George Borrello’s office, and if any grant funds are awarded and received, those funds will be used to cover the cost of this contract instead, according to the resolution.
