November 5, 2021 · Written By Andy Kegley
Too many times, it’s been said, that a picture is worth a thousand words. Such might also be said about this nice line graph, except insert ‘houses’ for ‘words.’ For thirty plus years, HOPE, Inc. has collected annual building permit data from the Town of Wytheville and County of Wythe, including the number of annual permits issued for stick-built homes and manufactured homes, plus the value of each. This graph goes a long way towards understanding the not-so-shocking predicament the area finds itself after last month’s announcement that a medical glove manufacturer will bring 2,500 new jobs to Wythe County.
There’s much that can be sliced and diced from the two different lines, but the fact of the matter is that since the Great Recession, the number of homes built in the Town and the County annually is less than half what it was prior to 2008. Several factors coalesce to explain this, including tighter credit, over-supply of homes, and far fewer working contractors.
Here’s a fun and revealing factoid from HOPE’s 31-year collection of building permit data from 1990 through 2021 for Wytheville and Wythe County. Since the great recession of 2008, only seven homes per year have been built in the Town of Wytheville. In the County, that number averages 39 homes per year. For the last 30 years, the annual average is 15 homes per year in the Town, 56 homes in the County.
The peak years for housing construction was the decade between 1998-2007 —the run-up to the bubble-popping, real estate crash which brought on the recession. In that period the Town saw 25 homes stick-built per year, while the County had 63 new starts per year. Compare the years 1998-99 with 2018-21, and we see that there were 427 homes (stick and manufactured) per year, while 20 years later, there are only 77 homes per year. That’s a pretty dramatic fall off. We haven’t tracked corresponding multi-family starts, but it’s a fairly small number with waiting lists galore associated with managing local apartments.
Now, with the news of the Blue Star medical glove manufacturing facility, there’s lots of talk about the need for new housing to accommodate all these new workers. Maybe there’s some magic hat from which new homes will be soon appear—they’re needed now even before new workers show up to start building the new factory.
We read in the Wytheville Enterprise that the Town will conduct its own housing analysis, hoping it will be completed sooner than the County’s effort (updating of the annual Comprehensive Plan which should be done by Dec. 31) or the Mount Rogers Planning District Commission’s own housing needs assessment which will be finished as at an undetermined date. Government studies are fine, but there are private market studies available which show the targeted need as well, including one HOPE procured a year ago for a new multi-family project. We’re past the point of studying and need to be doing if the community wants to meet benchmarks associated with the Blue Star announcement. Many hands will be necessary to build those thousand homes!
With a 30 year history in affordable housing, HOPE, Inc. stands ready. HOPE is well positioned to leverage its networks, expertise, and resources to help find beds for some of these new jobs. If you’re a developer, philanthropist, agency partner, or funder looking to make impact, please reach out.
