By GREG JORDAN
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
BLUEFIELD — Making Bluefield a place where people want to stay as well as a place where people want to move by creating an environment where affordable housing comes more common and readily accessible is the goal of studies presented Tuesday to the public and the Bluefield Planning Commission.
Residents from Bluefield and other parts of Mercer County learned Tuesday during a town hall meeting at Bluefield City Hall about affordable housing solutions. Around 50 people attended the meeting.
Jared Anderson with West Virginia Law, who has been helping the city of Bluefield create its comprehensive plan, said while this plan focuses on the city’s needs five to 10 years in the future, there needs to be a focus on priority areas and a chief area is housing.
Within two months, the hope is to have an open house in which the public can see a draft of the comprehensive plan and offer suggestions, Anderson said. He encouraged the public to keep attending the planning commission’s meetings.
“I would invite you to come to any of the planning commission meetings,” he stated, adding, “It’s suppose to be an open and participatory process.”
City Manager Cecil Marson welcomed the public and said that “the number one thing” the city needs to fix is its housing issues. Housing is an important part of the city’s comprehensive plan.
“We have a housing shortage here and we have people in substandard housing,” Marson told the audience. “We’ve brought in the pros here.”
Mel Jones with the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech, who has been studying Bluefield’s housing and other housing found around the county, outlined her findings. Jones said that she looked at housing around the region, spoke with local experts, visited neighborhoods and examined publicly-available data.
Most of Bluefield’s dwellings are occupied by working households and retirees, Jones said. There are 348 long-term vacancies in the city.
Some are slated for demolition, others are abandoned and others are not occupied because the owners are away and has no plans to sell or rent them.
There is a high demand for housing, but it is hard to find a quality housing unit to live in and there is a long waiting list.
People coming to Bluefield often want to rent a dwelling before they decide to stay and buy a home, Jones said.
“We need rental in order for people to land here and home ownership in order to keep them here,” she stated.
More affordable housing is needed. Jones said at least 400 households have extremely low incomes and may have a risk of becoming homeless. Extremely poor housing conditions depress values too much for people to feel comfortable about making substantial investments in renovations.
Bluefield will need to undertake a program to increase property values through public investments and thereby attract private investments in the city’s housing market.
Many households will need public help in order to rehabilitate or rebuild their homes, Jones said. Restoring old housing will stabilize existing residents while improving property values and attracting private investment.
A single property in poor condition can decrease the values of properties within a quarter-mile of it.
Seeking state and federal money and targeting specific areas for investment would help increase property values and help both people and banks feel more confident about investing.
— Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
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