ROBERTSDALE, Ala. — Baldwin County has always had a wealth of heritage and cultures, natural beauty, and genuinely good people. Whether new to the area, or a native, an individual grows to see and appreciate these qualities. These qualities are widely sought after, and property values across the county have soared to meet the ever increasing demand of buyers and renters settling in our area. This has created numerous problems, as the bullish real estate market has made getting into a home or apartment increasingly difficult for middle to low income families.

On Tuesday, Nov. 6, this issue and others were addressed at the Rural Housing Initiative Symposium held at the Baldwin County Central Annex in Robertsdale. The event was the result of a cooperative effort between Envision Coastal Alabama, a strategic planning facilitator and community development advisory firm, as well as Federal, State, and private organizations.

Among the speakers at the symposium were discussion panelists; David Dangler, keynote speaker at the event and Director of NeighborWorks America Rural Initiative, Cathy James of the Alabama Housing Finance Authority, Anthony Bishop, Rural Development Manager for the USDA, Dr. Donald Epley of the Center for Real Estate Studies at the University of South Alabama and Earl Blackmon CPA of HB&K Certified Public Accountants and Consultants.

The speakers and subjects on the agenda were introduced by the Rev. John Whitfield of Envision Coastal Alabama who went to extraordinary lengths to bring all parties together for the event.

As mentioned, one of the more daunting of the challenges under discussion was the issue of affordable housing in the area. The influx of people into Baldwin County has gradually begun to exceed the availability of affordable housing that people actually want to live in and raise their families. In a region growing as rapidly as this county, hasty decisions create wasteful mistakes in the long run, stunting sustainable community and business growth. This, is where the cooperation of these entities became paramount in combining research facts and figures from different sources, and melding inter-organizational strategies together into plausible solutions.

Dr. Donald Epley of the Center for Real Estate Studies was one of the experts on the panel, who spoke of how housing was deemed unaffordable. “If you want to talk about affordable housing, you have to move immediately into measurement. Otherwise, you can have a lot of conversation, but really not get that far,” he said.

“If you look at what is going on across the country in other areas, measurements are formulated relative to three items. The first of these items is income. You have workers living in your area; what is the average income that the individual worker brings home to his family that can be spent on housing? It takes detailed information like this on median family income in your area, detailed information on rentals in your area, and detailed information on what it takes to buy a house. So, affordability means income, rent, and prices of homes on a regular basis, instead of a one-time study which will become obsolete”, he concluded. Measuring what a family can actually afford to purchase or rent in a specified area is a science of numbers and comparisons and Epley and his team at the University of South Alabama toil to sieve through immense amounts of data to retrieve these figures about our area.

Another panelist, Earl Blackmon, spoke about Congressional legislation already in place in the area which assists in rebuilding the economies effected by the hurricanes of recent past. One such piece of legislation, house bill HR4440 or the Gulf Opportunity Zone Act of 2005 (GO Zone for short), offers numerous tax benefits to properties built and placed into service in our region. “One of the benefits provided in the GO Zone legislation was the opportunity for financing,” Blackmon said. “This financing was delivered to the different states and went through the Governor’s office. The State of Alabama received $2.1 billion, and out of this sum of money, individuals could apply for GO Zone bonds which were lower than market rate. The other part of the legislation is what we call Bonus Depreciation,” he added.

“This is available for personal property until this December. It is also available for residential and non-residential properties through December 2008. So there is still an opportunity to use the GO Zone Bonus Depreciation Deduction for real estate if placed into service before Dec. 31, 2008. However, if you were to put a sum of money towards improvements, whether thousands or millions, whatever (money) you put into the structure after acquiring it would be eligible for GO Zone Bonus Depreciation.” (For more information about GO Zone visit http://www.gozoneonline.com/Alabama.html or see the savings for yourself at http://www.gozoneonline.com/fasttrack.html). With legislation such as this in place, the balance can gradually be tipped in favor of potential home owners; allowing not only area families to save thousands, but new area businesses as well.

The keynote speaker at the symposium, David Dangler of Director of NeighborWorks America Rural Initiative, addressed issues such as sustainable rural development, emergency housing for evicted tenants, and lending money in such a way as to make a mortgage less cumbersome for low income or financially unstable families in hopes of lowering foreclosures. NeighborWorks America works extensively with other organizations to create affordable housing opportunities, strengthen communities and improve the lives of the average homeowner. The organization co-sponsored the Symposium with Envision Coastal Alabama.

Overall, the Rural Housing Initiative Symposium was a highly productive forum that projected a bright successful future for Baldwin County. Of all the concerns addressed at the Symposium, seemingly of most concern to all parties was the possibility that there would be no follow through. This, in itself, was reassuring to most. Only time will tell.