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City looks at housing needs amid land shortage Monday Dec 12, 2016 at 2:00 AM Dec 13, 2016 at 9:41 AM Tony Boom for the Mail Tribune TALENT — There wasn’t a single residential lot for sale in town, and the lowest of four homes on the market was $360,000 when Charlie Hamilton checked listings Wednesday. Hamilton and his associates at Suncrest Homes have built about 100 houses in the city over the past 25 years, and he says the problem is simple: “Talent has a shortage of land." Hamilton served on a citizen’s advisory committee that prepared a draft Housing Needs Analysis, and the work of that committee is now available in an online open house at www.cityoftalent.org that allows residents to comment on future housing needs. The input is a requirement for revising housing policy and adding land to meet residential needs for the next 20 years. There will also be a public open house from 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15, at Talent City Hall on Main Street. Talent will need an additional 1,272 dwelling units to accommodate 2,662 new residents by the year 2037, according to a study done by ECONorthwest. Contributing to the challenges, besides the lack of land, are the desires of people who cannot afford to buy in Ashland and want to locate nearby, plus high rental costs, says Community Development Director Zac Moody. Hamilton suggested the city might consider allowing smaller lots for single-family homes. Currently, the city requires a minimum of 5,000 square feet. “Maybe by allowing smaller lot sizes you can have smaller homes. That’s going to affect affordability,” said Hamilton. “To really have some flexibility (in building), as well as opening up some land, will help.” Housing trends were last evaluated in 2001 using 2000 Census data. Among finding in the draft analysis: • Talent's median home sale price for 2016 has been about $275,000. Ashland has been around $380,000, while Phoenix, east Medford and Jackson County have been below $250,000. Median rent of $992 per month tops Ashland, Phoenix, Medford and Jackson County. • There are 2,903 dwelling units today compared to 2,410 in 2000. Present average density per acre is 5.1 units. Three quarters of the units are single-family dwellings. • There are 38 acres of low-density, buildable residential land within city limits and another 69 acres in the city's urban growth boundary. There are 5 acres of medium-density land and 12 acres of high-density residential land available. Low density is defined as four dwellings per acre; medium is 7.7 and high is 13.4. Presently the city has no density goal. But going forward, land that could be brought into the city under the Regional Problem Solving process will have a target density of 6.6 units per acre, said Moody. An area of 28 acres east of Highway 99 and north of Suncrest Road is designated to be half residential and half commercial if brought into the city. But a recent study of commercial land within the city showed there is plenty for the next 20 years. “Talent might ask the RPS group to reconsider whether the area should be a 50/50 split,” said Moody. There are limits within the existing buildable housing lands that sit inside the urban growth boundary. An area west of the railroad tracks at Belmont Road is on a hillside, with restrictions that require larger lots. “We’d be close in some places (to the density goal), but couldn’t do that in Belmont,” said Moody. Given the slope restrictions, lots in Belmont would probably average about 8,400 square feet, yielding a density of about five units per acre. Adopting a Housing Needs Analysis and an Economic Opportunity Analysis are the first steps to determine if the city needs to expand its urban growth boundary. Early next year, the Planning Commission and the City Council will hold public hearings on the analysis before it is approved for the city’s Comprehensive Plan. Once that’s done, changes to existing rules could be made to accommodate more houses, and land could be annexed. Members of the public can leave their comments and questions online until Jan. 19. Staff will use the input to refine the analysis for the commission and council. — Tony Boom is an Ashland freelance writer. Reach him at [email protected].