What’s Up? Video: Developing the Housing Action Plan and what it means for our community

What’s Up College Station Archive

Grace Hallowell:

What’s up, College Station? I’m Grace Hallowell, and today I’m joined with David Brower, community development analyst. Hi David.

David Brower:

Hey, thanks so much for having me.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah, I’m excited you’re here. This is an important topic and you guys have been putting a lot of work into what we’re talking about today, and that is the housing action plan, which is a newer plan that’s kind of been in the work. So talk a little bit about what that plan entails.

David Brower:

Sure. And so the city has a comprehensive plan and it’s real important people know about that. So it’s an overarching document that lays out a vision for where College Station is going as far as development, what land should be used. And it’s a long range plan that different councils, different… that the city uses and that’s sort of, “Okay, this is our marching orders.” There was an update to that in 2021, and it includes… so that comprehensive plan includes four action items that revolve around housing, making sure that there’s housing opportunity for residents and along those lines. And so as part of that, we created this housing action plan to really kind of take those action items, put wheels on them and make it go to say, “Okay, specifically, what tools can the city use to address housing issues, to create housing opportunity for residents?”

Grace Hallowell:

Yes. And I know this is an important topic for our community. It’s something that is discussed a lot and part of the plan is the housing steering committee that was appointed by council.

David Brower:

That’s right. And so the council, what they did is we have a 13 member steering committee. It’s citizens that applied and were appointed and they’ve been working hard. So we’ve been going since November, did an existing conditions report. So folks watching this, you can go to cstx.gov/housingplan and right at the top there’s a button to see that existing conditions report, getting a real good look at what’s been happening. A lot of people know like, “Gosh, things have gotten more expensive and housing seems to have gotten really expensive,” but you can see some good data in this plan to kind of say exactly what’s been going on, what are the trends as far as to purchase a home, to rent a home, what’s happening with the number of units that are available, what types of units, where are we lacking, some of those. So this committee, they’ve looked into that.

Now what they’re doing, we’ve created a toolbox where it’s like, okay, there’s lots of different things. This is a national and a statewide problem. So ever since… really since COVID, which is housing prices and it’s always been an issue, but sort of it was a rocket that took off to where… So across the state and the country, you’ve got cities that are making plans and doing things, having to, in order to be able to help people that work or that live there be able to have housing opportunity. So we’ve been looking at all those plans and looking and seeing, “Okay, what tools are available to us as a city? What could we do to do a couple things?” There are tools that create housing units. Some of that’s just… it’s a supply demand thing. If you don’t have enough and you need more, it’s going to be expensive until you have more and more different types.

And then there are other types of tools that specifically create housing that’s restricted to people at or below certain incomes. So if you have middle income folks, that’s like, well, gosh, the median sales price of a house right now for not a new house, an existing house is $389,000. And so what can we do to help folks that work here be able to access that? So we’ve got that list of tools. And so right now the committee is looking and going like kind of pondering, “Which of these would be good for College Station to be in our plan?”

Grace Hallowell:

A lot of research is going into this.

David Brower:

That’s right.

Grace Hallowell:

And citizens are encouraged to express their opinions and their thoughts through surveys, correct?

David Brower:

That’s right. And so what the committee wants and needs, what the staff and this committee, we want to hear from citizens. So we have three different surveys. We’ve got a general survey, and so if you live or work in College Station, we want to know how housing affects you, what your needs are, and what ideas you have, what things have you seen other places, or what thoughts do you have as far as what tools could be used to help with this issue? We’ve got one specifically for students. So students-

Grace Hallowell:

Yes, because they are a big part of our population here living in our city.

David Brower:

That’s right. So we want to know, and the committee wants to know specifically how are housing issues affecting students, whether you’re a student at A&M, Blinn, RELLIS, all of them together, this survey is there. And then we have one specifically for employers. So for someone that hires other people as a business or an organization, how does housing affect your business, your employees, your ability to hire and retain people? And then as a business, what ideas do you have for what the city could possibly do to address housing issues?

Grace Hallowell:

Yes. And in addition to the surveys, if you really want to be involved, there’s a public meeting coming up at the end of the month.

David Brower:

That’s right. We’ve got two. So we’ve got one on March 21st. So it’s a Thursday night at 6:00 PM at the MTF, so the Meeting and Training Facility out there on Graham Road.

Grace Hallowell:

Yes.

David Brower:

It’s where you can usually early vote. It’s there in the municipal complex, so you can go there. Or we’ve got one at City Hall right on Texas Avenue at 6:00 PM on March 26th, a Tuesday night. So that’s an opportunity, like you said, get more involved. Staff and committee members will be there to talk with you. We’ll want some additional feedback. We’ll be doing a short presentation to give more information. We really want to know what people think, really want to solicit ideas so that this plan is the best possible plan to address housing in the city.

Grace Hallowell:

Right. And have all possible feedback from everybody that lives here or works here or goes to school here.

David Brower:

That’s right.

Grace Hallowell:

To get a better indicator of what we need to prosper.

David Brower:

That’s right. Well, and it’s a huge issue. You think about a home like everybody needs to live somewhere and close to half of renters in College Station are cost burdened. That means they spend more than 30% of their monthly income on housing costs. And that’s tough.

Grace Hallowell:

It is.

David Brower:

That’s an economic issue. So if you have money that’s more of your money’s going toward housing, that means less can go toward other things. And so we use the word housing opportunity because housing really does. There’s lots of… If you go look at that existing conditions report, housing matters for a lot of reasons for the health of our community. And so we’re excited. We’re excited that in our comprehensive plan, this is addressed and we’ve got the leaders of our city are really looking into this. And we’ve got leaders on our committee that are working hard and we know citizens are concerned. And so we want that feedback. And so our webpage, cstx.gov/housingplan. If you scroll down past the existing conditions report, there’s buttons, one for each of those surveys. So we’ve got a general survey, a student survey, and an employer survey. And somebody might fit all three of those. So take all three. If you’re a student, you also live here, you’re a resident, you can take the general one, the student one, and then maybe you also run a business and employ some people, take the employer survey so…

Grace Hallowell:

Yes. And there is a survey that’s offered in Spanish, correct?

David Brower:

Yes.

Grace Hallowell:

If English isn’t your first language.

David Brower:

All three of those are there in Spanish as well. So yes, we want people who if you’re more comfortable taking that survey in Spanish, please go take it that way as well.

Grace Hallowell:

Well, thank you so much for joining me today David.

David Brower:

Thanks for having me. We really appreciate it.

Grace Hallowell:

Yeah, you’re welcome. And that’s What’s Up.