State Representative Dale Washburn weighs in on affordable housing in Georgia

COLUMBUS, Ga. ( WRBL ) — The Columbus Board of Realtors held a breakfast at Green Island Country Club to share perspectives on key concerns affecting the housing market, property rights, and local developments.

Keynote speaker Georgia Representative Dale Washburn of District 144 urges local governments to allow smaller homes to be built on smaller lots as a means to make homes more affordable.

“One thing we’re urging local governments to do, not to force smaller lots, but to allow a smaller lot,” says Washburn. “The other thing is minimum square footage, half size requiring bigger square footage like 2000 square feet, or maybe requiring that they be all brick. Those things are forcing costs.”

Michael Harris, Mayor of Waverly Hall says this plan would have to be evaluated carefully in Harris County.

Harris says, “Most of Harris County are on a septic tank systems and you require a little more land  when you have to install systems and sometimes reinstall them over the course of  home ownership.”

Skip Henderson, Mayor of Columbus says if the focus in the community is not on providing housing options for young people entering the housing market there will be unsolvable problems in the future.

“The challenge is that you’ve got to have rental opportunities for these young people that are coming in, even if they’re here for a few years.” says Henderson. “What we’re seeing a lot of is  people will come here to go to CSU or they’ll be stationed here for a short time in the military, or they’ll graduate here and move on, but then they come back because they realize what a great place Columbus is to try to raise a family.”

Washburn also said by improving property taxes housing could become more affordable. He cited House Bill 581 designed to provide a property tax relief to homeowners as another helpful solution to making housing affordable.

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