LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa. – There seems to be a general consensus that the Lehigh Valley has a housing problem, but not much of a consensus on what to do about it.
That could soon change, as the Lehigh Valley Housing Supply and Attainability Strategy gets to work.
Last year, Lehigh County and the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission (LVPC) announced they were teaming up for a study to take a closer look at the issue. Now the event that will kick-off the getting-down-to-business part is just around the corner.
On Tuesday, during a meeting of LVPC’s Comprehensive Planning Committee, Jill Seitz, chief community planner, said that event will happen during the first week of February, although an exact date was not provided.
The effort, which also involves the Urban Land Institute, aims to bring together representatives from a variety of sectors, including state and local governments, school districts, land development, real estate and banking.
At the event, LVPC will present its findings on what Seitz called the region’s mismatch between household incomes and housing price points.
“We will quantify how many units the area needs to add by the year 2050 to accommodate our projected population growth,” she said. “We’ll talk about the degree of housing unit diversity the region currently has, and we’ll talk how market factors have changed over time that contribute to the mismatch.”
Numbers released last year by LVPC indicated the Lehigh Valley was in need of about 9,000 more housing units.
Seitz stressed that the strategy being prepared is focusing on market rate-attainable- housing, not necessarily affordable-subsidized- housing, although a lack of attainable housing compresses availability at all levels, she said.
The first event is one of three in a series. The second event, which will happen in the spring, will invite participants from each industry to join focus groups to explore challenges specific to their work.
Then in June, everyone will reconvene at a final event, where solutions, including action steps, will be shared.
“Ultimately this project will yield a comprehensive strategy to increase housing production where it is needed, in the forms and price points that support housing attainability across all incomes,” Seitz said.