When Chris Masingill makes recruiting calls to businesses scouting St. Tammany Parish, he says housing for their workers is always near the top of their list of concerns.
And increasingly, companies are finding fewer workforce housing options in the parish, Masingill told the audience at the Bureau of Governmental Research panel discussion in Covington last week..
“It has absolutely had an impact,” said Masingill, who heads St. Tammany Corp., the parish’s economic development agency.
St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper, sitting next to Masingill on the same panel, agreed. Asked by the moderator if the parish has a workforce housing crisis, Cooper responded, “We do.”
Since being hired as CEO of the economic development agency in 2018, Masingill has made little secret that homebuilders and commercial developers often face difficulties winning public and governmental approval for new projects, and it threatens to price many workers out of the parish.
Chris Masingill, CEO of St. Tammany’s economic development agency, speaks at a news conference announcing the launch of Gulf South Commerce Park. He is flanked by Parish President Mike Cooper, left, and developer John Crosby, right.
“When we say workforce housing we mean folks that range from skilled workers to retail to firefighters and police,” Masingill said in a later interview. “The backbone of our economy.”
More people, more jobs
St. Tammany is one of only a handful of parishes in the state that grew from 2020 to 2023.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimated St. Tammany’s 2023 population at 275,583, a 4% increase over 2020. Meanwhile, the percentage of parish residents who commuted out of St. Tammany for work continues to fall, Robert Habans, an applied economist and social scientist at the University of Louisiana Lafayette, told the BGR panel.
From 1990 to 2023, St. Tammany’s share of metro area employment grew from 6% to 18%, and the number of jobs in the parish grew from 34,000 to 95,000, according to a report that Habans authored for The Data Center last September.
The population and job growth, Masingill has said, logically leads to a need for housing, and especially for more affordable houses.
But putting numbers to the problem in St. Tammany has remained elusive. How many new homes are needed? And at what prices?
St. Tammany Parish President Mike Cooper
Masingill, Cooper and other parish officials hope a soon-to-be-started housing analysis will provide some answers. The study will look at things ranging from housing costs and population trends to the impact on existing infrastructure.
Sale prices for homes in most of St. Tammany’s zip codes climbed from 2023 to 2024, with the prices per square foot ranging from $133 to $188, depending on the area of the parish.
Meanwhile, the median price for a St. Tammany Parish house sold in January was about $315,000, a 14% increase over the price in January 2024, according to data from the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors.
Masingill said a Mandeville-based company, Lagniappe Planning & Design, will be the lead consultant for study. Parish government spokesperson Michael Vinsanau said the proposal is still in the works and a cost has not been established yet.
Trying to catch up
Cooper said the parish government recognizes that infrastructure growth hasn’t kept pace with the residential and commercial growth and is working to reverse that.
St. Tammany Parish Council member Kathy Seiden
St. Tammany Parish Council member Kathy Seiden, who heads the council’s Economic Development Workgroup, said the analysis will not only put some numbers to the housing issue, but will also help officials develop better public policy around development issues.
Like other elected officials, Seiden isn’t deaf to the concerns of parish residents about drainage problems, traffic nightmares and a host of other issues they often lay at the feet of decades of fast-paced residential and commercial development.
She experiences the same frustrations, she said.
“We’re a great place and I want more people to move here,” said Seiden, whose council district includes a portion of fast-growing western St. Tammany. “I know a lot of people don’t agree with that.
“But I know that more people are moving here whether we like it or not.”
The findings of the housing study, Seiden says, could provide some peace of mind to some residents who worry that adding more homes and businesses will only add more cars to choked roadways and increase flooding threats.
Masingill also hopes the study can lead to better public policy. In recent years, the Parish Council has sometimes dealt with development pressures by enacting moratoriums in certain areas.
How far such a study will go toward calming the nerves of some growth-weary parish residents remains a big question. It’s not likely that the often pitched battles over development will cease.
“Their concerns are real — I don’t want to diminish that,” Masingill said of frustrated residents. “But you cannot govern through moratoriums.”