The Advocates
The Advocates: Charleston County Housing Win!
| Charleston County leadership has been hard at work developing the Housing Our Future Plan, a comprehensive plan for housing and housing affordability within the county. Deputy County Administrator Christine Durant informed council members that Charleston County has invested $83 million in housing projects over the past three years. – April 2021 – An RFP was authorized to develop a housing plan – August 2021 – $3.5 million for housing stability – June/July 2022 – $3 million for critical home repair – June 2022 – $20 million for ARPA funding – January 2023 – $10.2 Gap financing – March 2023 – $2.9 million in HOME funding and $37 million of Emergency Rental Assistance The County’s initiatives have funded projects to build 27 homes and served 4,416 tenants to prevent evictions. We learned there are models that work and these initiatives, like gap financing, provide an opportunity for developers to partner with local government to produce more units on the market. County leadership continued working to address housing needs by unanimously adopting the Housing Our Future plan on May 22, 2023. The council members agreed that the top two priorities for the county would include: – Land banking – Establishing an affordable housing trust fund On the same day in Columbia, Governor McMaster signed Senate Bill 284 into action. Bill 284 allows municipalities to use local accommodations tax for workforce housing: SECTION 1. Section 6-1-530(A) of the S.C. Code is amended to read: (A) The revenue generated by the local accommodations tax must be used exclusively for the following purposes: … (7) development of workforce housing, which must include programs to promote home ownership. However, a county or municipality may not expend or dedicate more than fifteen percent of its annual local accommodations tax revenue for the purposes set forth in this item. The provisions of this item are no longer effective after December 31, 2030. These tax dollars could be used as a source of funding for the launch of an affordable housing trust for the county. County staff is currently working on a plan to develop two top priorities established at the Housing Our Future workshop. June is National Homeownership Month! The Chamber is currently working on updating our Attainable Housing Resource Guide. If you or your organization provides resources for homeowners or potential homeowners and would like to be included in our resource section please email W.J. Queen, at wqueen@charlestonchamber.org with your contact information and a brief description of the product or service you provide. Resources must be submitted by June 16, 2023. Thank you for an amazing Attainable Housing Week 2023! Thank you to our sponsor Trusit and our housing Champion sponsors J.H.W. Enterprise, HLA and LS3P! |
Posted on
June 9th 2023
Written by
Justin Allen
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