Trending
FAIRMONT-- The Fairmont Economic Development Authority (FEDA) continued to talk about housing during its meeting on Monday.
Economic Development Coordinator, Ned Koppen, presented the executive summary from Bowen National research on the recent housing study that was done.
He said in total it was a 250 page document and that a two page summary doesn't provide a lot of clarity, but he hit the high points of the study that stood out to him.
"The housing gap over five years, 400-plus total units," Koppen said. "Our largest age group projected growth is going to be 75-plus."
In addition, overall households are projected to decrease 1.5 percent, compared to that 75-plus group growing by 14.8 percent.
Koppen stressed that it's not just like that in Fairmont, but southern Minnesota.
"Affordability pressures is something that we should pay attention to," Koppen said. "We have over 1,300 households that are paying more than 30 percent of their income. That's a tough number. Eight-hundred-twenty of those are rentals and 504 of them are owners."
He also acknowledged the housing inventory shortage, which he said is not new, but that it was still surprising to see the study show that 96.5 percent of multi-family rentals are occupied and that 98.6 percent of single family rentals are occupied.
"That's tight," Koppen said.
While not included in the summary packet, Koppen said that Bowen shared with him that they found that more people were driving into Fairmont to work than are driving out of it to work.
"That tells you again-- housing shortage," Koppen said. "These people are spending a significant amount of their paycheck outside of Fairmont and that's certainly not helping economic development."
Issues with blight were also touched on, which the Fairmont City Council has also been talking about.
"The amount of blight we have... it's something I don't think we've really done a lot about in a really long time. I think being intentional about looking at that and addressing that," Koppen said.
In the summary Bowen also provided a recommended action plan which includes setting goals and priorities, building implementation capacity, reducing development barriers, preserving and improving existing housing and engaging and attracting investment.
Also during the meeting, FEDA's new board member, Brandon Hollingsworth, presented a draft document on developing new housing. He said he got the idea to put it together after listening to a conversation about housing at last month's FEDA meeting, which was his first. He said he relied on ChatGPT to help compile the information.
"To figure out where Fairmont is doing good and where we're falling short and then how to building on bringing ourselves up to par with where we're missing compared to St. James or other surrounding communities," Hollingsworth said.
He went over some of the suggestions to address issues, including developing a developer advantage package and making housing restoration a core incentive.
Board members present agreed that the document was good and Jon Omvig said it matched what FEDA had said previously, which is that housing needs to be a priority.
"We need housing because without housing, we don't necessarily have the workforce that would lure business and industrial," Omvig said.
He said he thinks it would be an opportunity for them to target areas that they'd like to see development.
"We've talked about housing a lot but we have an hour once a month, and we have a lot of other things on our agenda," Omvig said. "So do we have a working group outside of this meeting?" he asked
After Omvig also expressed worried about people's time, Koppen said he didn't think it would be an issue and that people would want to be involved.
To close out the meeting, Kawecki said she would like to see a separate working group get together to discuss housing further.
Koppen questioned how many would be a good number to get involved. He asked the board members to send them ideas of who they think should be involved so that they can building a working group.