The Barrow County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday rejected a request by the president of the Barrow County Builders Association to immediately reduce the minimum size of new homes in the county.
Association president Tony Trusty said that his group’s request last year for multiple changes to the Unified Development Code have been narrowed down to one — for the county to allow 33 percent of all homes built in new or previously approved subdivisions to be a minimum of 1,400 square feet instead of the current 1,600 square feet.
Trusty called the change a “small step” that would help boost the local building industry stagnated by the national recession that took hold in late 2008.
He said every tradesman put to work would help the local economy by spending his wages at local restaurants and other businesses, and the new houses would generate more tax revenue for the county government due to higher taxable property values.
The BCBA board “can only see a positive come from this, and we ask that you put it to a vote,” he said.
No official action was taken Tuesday night, but several BOC members expressed opposition to the request.
Commissioner Steve Worley pointed out that over the past year, the county had issued only three building permits for houses 1,400 square feet in size, while there are hundreds of approved lots for such homes.
“There’s 360 lots that are buildable right now,” Worley said.
Trusty said some of those lots are not buildable. He also said that in some approved subdivisions, the smaller houses still would have to be built on basements, and many people can’t afford homes with basements.
Worley said even if the 360 figure were cut in half, that would mean there is still a multiple-year supply of available lots for smaller homes.
When Trusty responded Tuesday night that “maybe they are still asking too much for lots,” the audience erupted in laughter.
Smaller house size bid a current no-go
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#1
mark my words
on
05/05/11 at 07:08 AM
[Reply]
Good work BOC! This wolf is always at the door and always pushing for smaller and cheaper. If the BOC had not been asleep at the switch for the past 20 years or so, we could have had bigger, better houses, a stronger tax base and a by-pass.
#2
Another Longtime Citizen
on
05/15/11 at 05:16 PM
[Reply]
We Do Not need to expand these type homes in our particular community. We already have our share of lower end housing and you cannot support the expanding infrastructure of our growth, our population with these lower end housing options. We as a county have way, way too many smaller homes; we are very bottom heavy, and with a lack of larger homes which would balance our need for more and higher taxes. We cannot allow this to become a less desirable destination (than we have already become), stuck with only starter homes, and the highest taxes in the metro area because we weren't smart enough to attract a balance of home sizes and prices (again lack of higher end) which bring in more property tax revenue along with more consumer spending here in our county, resulting in increased property values even among the smaller cheaper homes and more industry and supporting new businesses. Larger more expensive homes are typically owned by persons with higher incomes attracting a different and absent portion of our citizenry missing from the mix. They typically have more disposable income to inject into our economy, so others will have to pay less to sustain it. Those residents often will help us with their pocketbooks or influence to gain certain additions to our community that they would desire and would benefit us all. We don’t need more modular (or mobile) homes, and we don’t need but a Small percentage of starter homes being built right now. We have over 2000 starter homes sitting empty for purchase or rental now in Barrow County. We need to clean up and be a more attractive community overall. We need more parks/parklands (not just baseball fields) and other options for both our current citizens and to attract new ones, this would be something we cannot afford if we stick to only lower end housing options. At the moment we can even afford to pay our current operating budget, can’t even keep fire stations manned.