Greene County leaders agree to move forward on housing issues.

As we’ve previously reported, representatives from the Jefferson City Council, Greene County Development Corporation (GCDC), Grow Greene County Gaming Corporation (GGCGC) and Greene County Board of Supervisors met Tuesday morning to determine if there is a need for housing throughout the county and whether or not further research was needed to develop a possible public and private financial incentive model for housing developers.

Moderator and GCDC member Sid Jones tells Raccoon Valley Radio he thought the discussion was important to get everyone on the same page to establish a housing plan.

“To bring those bodies together (and) to be able to have those discussions together, is something we’ve never been able to do. I believe they turned out well. The comments were active, we had great participation from our audience and their input was terrific and we came out of that meeting with a clearer direction for those bodies to pursue.”

It was determined that the two public boards of the City Council and Supervisors, would consider voting on moving forward with a housing assessment, developing a financial model and hiring an outside source to lead the project. GCDC would then make a recommendation to have McClure Engineering be the entity that the respective boards would hire to do the initial research.

Jefferson Mayor Craig Berry thought that if housing needs exist in other communities, then perhaps the mayors of those cities should be involved too.

“Well it’s suppose to be a county-wide process and what we’re looking for is a county-wide model, and I think other communities need to be involved in this for their input.”

The special meeting was the result of several presentations made by Terry Lutz of McClure Engineering to gauge interest in the respective boards to work together on developing a financial incentive package for developers to establish housing.