CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Officials with Advantage Valley hoped to get as many people as possible to join in a survey of the region’s housing needs. Advantage Valley helps recruit industry and business to a ten county region between Huntington and Charleston.
With several major economic development announcements in recent years, the focus for the moment is on the needs for housing in the region.
“We want to look at it now and quantify what the housing needs are. We know there are two-thousand jobs coming and we know we’ll have people moving here. We also know we already have a housing shortage,” said Marjorie Clark from Advantage Valley speaking on 580-Live on WCHS Radio this week.
The survey seeks to determine what the needs for housing will be both now and into the next several years. The announcements of Nucor Steel in Mason County and Berkshire Hathaway in Jackson County are some of the bigger economic development plans which look to boost the demand for housing throughout the region.
“We are looking to get opinions from not only folks who live here, but anyone who works in that ten county area, we’re also taking to employers, developers, relators, and lenders,” she said.
The idea is to find out what is here as far as housing inventory and how best address any future needs. According to Clark it might be a need for new housing or it might be a need to renovate existing housing. It may also be a situation where more rental units are needed or more of a certain size dwelling is in short supply.
“We need to quantify the housing demand to try and encourage and attract developers to help us with whatever the report reveals. We know we have a need and we need to quantify that need,” she said.
She encouraged everybody to go to the Advantage Valley website and take the brief survey which will take about ten minutes. As an incentive several hundred dollars in gift cards will be given way randomly to those who take the survey. The deadline for the survey is Friday.