Economic Development Challenges Facing Rural Georgia
What are the areas of most interest when a new industry, or business is considering locating in Stephens County and other rural Georgia areas? According to a report issued by Area Development Magazine, Survey of Corporate Decision Makers, 1t Qtr 2020 the top four location decision factors are: Availability of Skilled Labor, Highway Accessibility, Energy Availability & Costs, and Quality of Life.
Let’s take a look at all four as it pertains to Stephens County. Availability of Skilled Labor: The entire country is dealing with the post-pandemic ripple effect of the shortage of skilled labor. Our community leadership works closely together to best capitalize on the opportunities available to us. We have a Business Education Task Force including leadership from our local school system, post-secondary education, Chamber of Commerce, Stephens County Development Authority, along with our local business network focused on making sure we are preparing our students to be qualified to consider career opportunities available in our community. Stephens County High School Work-Based Learning program partners with 95 local businesses and industries to place our SCHS students, who fill over 400 local jobs each year. This partnership is beneficial both to our students and to our local companies by increasing their work experience and educating them about existing career opportunities in Stephens County.
Highway Accessibility: Thankfully Stephens County is conveniently located between I-85 and Hwy 985/365/441. Thus, making it relatively easy for our residents and business community to access our highway system. This access was greatly enhanced due to the relatively new expansion of Highway 17 to four lanes connecting I-85 with Highway 985/365/441.
Energy Availability & Costs: Georgia Power and Hart EMC service our community and play a huge role in meeting the needs of our entire area both residential and commercial. Not to mention, Toccoa Natural Gas and City Water are both assets we have available to offer in Stephens County.
Quality of Life: A big part of quality of life includes local healthcare options, education, and available housing for existing and potential residents/employees.
Housing. Where will the people live who teach in the schools, work in the hospitals or local businesses and industries and help operate the city and county governments? This is a question most often raised in meetings with potential new industry and existing companies considering expansions who rely on finding employees who want to live in a community where they will enjoy living.
According to Georgia Trend, July 30, 2021, in an article entitled, “Bridging the Housing Gap – Cities across Georgia are pursuing creative solutions for more affordable homes”, written by Kenna Simmons. Simmons says, “Consider two amounts: $994 and $19.11. The first is the fair-market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Georgia. The second is the hourly wage a household would need to earn to afford that rent and utilities without exceeding 30% of income on housing. That translates to making about $40,000 annually. In Atlanta, you’d need to make $22.44 an hour or about $46,700 a year. Finding
affordable housing is a problem in cities across the country, but it’s particularly acute in Atlanta and other Georgia cities.”
In the February 22, 2022 edition of The Atlanta Journal, Alia Malik penned an article “Housing shortage exacerbates affordability problems in Atlanta suburbs”. She writes, “As metro Atlanta grapples with rising housing costs, a crisis is worsening in suburbs once thought of as affordable alternatives to the city. The suburbs’ rapid growth, a shortage of labor and building materials due to the pandemic and a flood of corporate investors are exacerbating a national deficit in housing supply that began at least a decade ago. The resulting prices are pushing low- and moderate-income workers — including service employees, nurses and early-career teachers — out of areas where they are needed, experts and policymakers say.”
“At some point, there’s not going to be anywhere for people to go,” said Courtney Anderson, a law professor at Georgia State University whose research focuses on affordable housing. “As prices increased, people who would normally have bought homes started renting, and rents went up across the area,” Anderson said.
The article also says, Median rents as a proportion of household income exceed the affordability standard of 30% in DeKalb, Clayton and Gwinnett Counties, according to 2019 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. So, it makes sense to expect the rest of metro Atlanta and rural communities may not be far behind.
Brittany Ivey, President & CEO of Stephens County Development Authority stated: 'In my first 90 days on the job I made it a priority to visit as many industries as possible. I asked every industry I visited what their biggest challenge was currently? The answer constantly was workforce and lack of housing for their workforce when they were successful in recruiting new employees. ASI shared a story of how they recruited a recent college graduate with a lot of potential, but when that recruit came to the area they were unable to find somewhere to live so they moved on to another opportunity. Stories like this led to our initial push to address the lack of workforce housing in our community.'
Our rental market in Stephens County is summarized by clearly more demand than there is supply. I’m not referring to income-based housing, which is also at full capacity, by the way. And if we had more available rental options it would also allow those residents who qualify to move into and rent affordable housing in a price range which is suited for our local workforce. Housing is a trickle-down effect. By this I mean, people who choose to inhabit new available housing vacate their existing accommodations creating room for new residents to occupy.
Let’s take a glimpse at our existing real estate market in Stephens County, which has been quite explosive over the past few years. According to Georgia MLS, we currently have 41 houses on the market ($250k-$350k) in Stephens County. On average we have 31 properties sold/month and the average time spent on the market is 7 days, on average. As quoted in The Toccoa Record February 10, 2022, “Single family dwelling sales rise 76% in January.” Michelle Ivester of Talan Properties and Stephens County Commissioner was quoted saying “We have seen people from all over the U.S. moving here to Toccoa over the last few years. The problem we are facing is obviously a shortage of homes. It’s not uncommon at all for a home to be listed and within two days we will have 10-20 offers on it (most above asking price).” Local attorney Janney Sanders was also quoted in the same article saying, “The real estate market locally in NE Georgia, including Toccoa-Stephens County, has been strong now for the last
two to three years. There is a significant demand for housing and limited inventory. Prices have increased over that period of time as a result of the limited supply and increased demand”, Sanders said.
With raising prices in homes on the market this obviously pushes more residents into the rental market, where the supply of rental homes is limited. It’s not at all unusual for available rental properties to receive 30-50 applications within the first day or two of availability. We receive calls at the Chamber of Commerce regularly from newly hired employees in our community looking for a place to live. Though we do have a list of contacts to share, most rental property owners have lengthy waiting lists. It’s no secret affordable housing, is in short supply, thus making it even more challenging to find qualified employees when we have nowhere for them to live.
The bottom line is this: how do you expect our community to grow and thrive without available housing? We are at full capacity. Therefore, as we welcome new business and industry to Stephens County, we must also welcome new residential development to support our business community to help them hire qualified employees to live in the community where they work and play. Keeping our tax dollars right here in Stephens County. In order for Stephens County to continue to grow we must have more available housing.