Citizens meet to discuss housing
Oct. 8—HENDERSON — Members of government, business leaders and representatives from the Henderson-Vance Chamber of Commerce convened in the fourth business roundtable at Clearview Baptist Church on Friday.
Corey Williams, director of Development Services and Code Compliance, spoke about the city's efforts to fight blight in Henderson and its history.
Williams noted that over 60% of parcels in Henderson are valued at below $50,000, a problem that the city seeks to address by encouraging development. The West End and Flint Hill areas have been designated as urban redevelopment areas, a move that seeks to attract new investment into the community.
In the past 15 years the city has invested around $1.3 million, which includes $500,000 in grant funding, towards cleaning up blight — in other words, uninhabitable structures. In that time the city has removed around 400 such structures. This year alone the city has committed around $100,000, a far cry from some previous years, where funding got as low as $30,000, or nothing.
From around 2007 to 2017, there was a period where no new homes were being built in Henderson, leading to a housing shortage felt today. City Manager Terrell Blackmon cited a 2020 UNC Chapel Hill School of Government study that found Henderson was around 3,000 houses short. City Councilwoman Sara Coffey pointed out that the housing shortage makes Henderson a less enticing option for businesses looking for a place to open up shop.
Moving forward, Williams wants to focus more on rehabilitation of abandoned structures — assuming their bones are good — in the interest of maintaining Henderson's housing stock.
"It's homeownership that we would love to see, it's cleaning that blight that we'd love to see, it's protecting our rental tenant population as best we can," Williams said. "But there's still some work to do."
The nameless, informal group meets each month at the church at 3485 U.S. 158 Business. There isn't a set date for the next meeting as of yet.
As a group of citizens and business owners, their part is "to contribute and encourage great things," Brian Boyd of Boyd Chevrolet said.
