We are looking to build more housing in the Pike Valley Community (Courtland, Scandia, Norway, Republic). This includes a panel-built housing program through the Industrial Arts program at Pike Valley where students will build panels that will be transported to a house site on a trailer. The house will then be finished off by volunteers and contractors. It will be a revolving program (money will be reinvested for the next house build).
Pike Valley Schools Partnership
Pike Valley High School is setting up a panel-built housing program in our new Industrial Arts shop to help
tackle the area’s lack of available, quality housing units. The majority of the houses in Republic County were built before 1929. Republic County needs new, affordable homes, but an urban business model hampers growth. The high school wood’s classes will be involved in hands-on experience building prefab, housing panels. We plan to launch the program in the spring semester starting January 2023. This panel-built housing system enables exterior walls to be produced off-site, and then be transported by truck to anywhere in the region. This makes the system accessible and timely, to control costs and more quickly make a solution to the problem. The replicable process isn’t solely dependent on contractor availability, which is in short supply in our area.
The Goals
The goal is twofold. The first being to create affordable housing stock that can be replicated throughout the area. Secondly, this program will introduce students to an issue, teach the necessary skills and knowledge to create a physical solution, and understand the steps necessary to get from the beginning to end in a real-scale construction project. Additionally, the project has the potential to introduce students to the building trades as a possible career, which helps all of Republic County since the lack of people in building trades hampers housing development.
With the second phase purchase of the final tools and the starting materials, Pike Valley will be equipped to construct panel wall sections for the prefab housing system starting in spring semester in January. By establishing the school as part of the network, these panels can be utilized to build housing in our communities. The panels are constructed to the highest energy efficient standards, to help control utility costs after a family moves in. The panels can be constructed off site in a climate-controlled shop and then transported to the site on a trailer, enabling the bulk of construction to happen year-round. Finishes are added, through local contractor work, after the house is put into place. This method was chosen because of its ease of replication, ability to be adapted, ability to address housing needs quickly, potential to use local contractors, and favorable cost.
Pike Valley High School is partnering with Republic County Economic Development to build out this ecosystem. We are the only school system in Republic County with an industrial arts class, so Pike Valley Schools is planning to take on this role to start to address the housing issue in the county.
The Housing Situation
Our county’s population has declined in the last fifty years and so in theory there should be an available supply of homes, but in reality there is not. Seventy or eighty years ago our region’s primary occupation was farming. A large percentage of families tied to farming lived in houses in the country, near the land they farmed. Today there are fewer farmers farming more acres, and over half of those farmsteads are no longer standing or have deteriorated to the point of inhabitability. The face of rural Kansas has drastically changed, and today families want to live in their communities, to take pride in being part of something, to be closer to the community’s amenities.
The county has few homes for sale, and most are older homes that are in need of extensive renovation, are not move-in-ready condition and do not meet the needs of the individuals and families looking for housing today. From a rental standpoint, the outlook is just as grim. Available rental houses are few and far between, and rental listings consist of a few apartments with waiting lists. The lack of housing will negatively impact the plans of area businesses to add new jobs.
Barriers to Building
The high cost of materials, low tax valuation, return on investment and renter issues having prohibited new construction. Utility and infrastructure costs can deter the development of new housing projects. Most housing programs are tied to low- or moderate-income housing. Studies have shown that half of all Americans that make less than $50,000 per year are cost burdened. A person or household is considered to be cost burdened, if they need to spend more than 30% of their income on either rent or mortgage. This can be attributed to housing prices increasing while salaries stay the same. For every 1 affordable house that is built, 18 unaffordable houses are built.
The Statistics
Within Republic County, 49.3% of the houses were built before 1939 and 88.5% of the housing were built before 1969. The housing problem is prohibiting employers from hiring and the rural population from growing. The age of the existing housing stock as well the retention of ownership has caused the quality and quantity of affordable housing to decline. This forces families to seek better social environments outside of the county – affecting the economy, health, schools, and sense of belonging of the area. Consequently, as the age of homes increases, so does the cost of upkeep. Although some of these homes may be affordable initially, they are not sustainable, and the overall cost of living is higher. Republic County has a total population of 4,658 people. Within the county, the median income level is $47,976. Of the total population, 52% make less than $50,000 a year.
The unemployment rate in Republic County is 2.7% (July 2022). Studies show that around 3% of a population is never looking for work. This means that Republic County has a 0.3% unemployment rate. Employers felt this issue before the COVID-19 pandemic and the employment issue has been amplified even more after the pandemic has ended.
Our business environment is significantly hindered by the lack of workforce housing, which will be alleviated by lessening the housing shortage. Based on the current salaries offered by one of our leading employers and manufacturers the houses we aim to build will fall within affordability ranges as stated within MIH’s 60% to 150% range. If we utilize the base fabricator salary as reported by the manufacturer, ($35,617) and compare that to the MIH income requirements for 1-person to 4-person households, these homes will be affordable and help meet the current needs of the community. Doing this housing program will allow for us to capture workers that are not currently living in Republic County, but who are working here. This also helps our school system with students and additional revenue from the State.
The housing situation in Republic County is extremely dire, so much so that we have had three of our major employers take major steps to try to remedy the housing situation this year. Since 2020, a Belleville manufacturer has been exclusively renting rooms for workers at the Super 8 Motel in Belleville. Because of the cost of doing this long-term, the company partnered with a staffing/property management company in 2022 to get two former HUD properties in the area back into use. These properties are twenty minutes from Belleville and have been closed for the last five years because our population does not meet the low income guidelines. Instead our population needs the moderate income housing that we are applying for through this application. Also in 2022, another major employer, Bestifor Hay, bought the S&H Motel to turn into housing for their employees and the Republic County Feeders in Scandia bought an apartment complex that flooded over twenty years ago putting it back into use for their staff.
What Has Been Done?
Republic County Economic Development has actually been working on this issue for fifteen years. The City of Belleville was the pilot for the Nuisance Abatement Program through the NCK Regional Development which targeted cleanup of the City of Belleville in four quadrants. This also included tearing down blighted structures. Republic County participated in the 2021 Statewide Housing Needs Assessment and all follow up calls. In this time period, Republic County and the City of Belleville started working with potential land owners in targeted development areas of Belleville and meeting with housing developers from Manhattan. Additionally, Republic County has worked with NWK Economic Innovation Center on fact finding to housing barriers and long-term housing solutions for the region.
In 2021, Republic County piloted a Republic County Housing Incentives Program through the Dane G. Hansen Foundation that offered a Demolition Assistance Grant, Empty Nester Grant, and a Paint The County Grant. These programs helped to clean up the County and offer some incentives for move over housing, but did not solve the issue of new housing units. In 2020, Republic County participated in the NCK Home Ownership Program that provided home buyers with down payment and closing cost assistance. This successful program helped to sell eleven homes in Republic County with just over $1 million in investment and $132,000 provided by the program. This was a mixed blessing however, because after the program completed, the available housing stock in Republic County was down to one or two houses per realtor and has remained that way throughout 2022.
In 2018 and 2019, Republic County Economic Development (RCED) utilized housing interns through Dane G. Hansen Foundation to try to make progress on this issue, knowing that it was essential to the county’s growth. The intern also conducted an electronic survey of housing needs in the county which included twenty-nine percent of the respondents were 35-44, twenty-three percent were 55-64, and twenty percent were 45-54. Over half of the respondents saw a great need for Moderate Income Housing. In 2016, RCED worked with Jayhawk Consulting at Kansas University, MBA program seeing if these academic minds could assist in the work. While the group did a good job of analyzing the Republic County housing issues, the students didn’t find any new information that we didn’t already know.
In 2014, Buffalo Apartments opened in the former grade school. This project completed by the Pioneer Group, included forty-one low income apartments and fifteen moderate income apartments. The moderate-income apartments filled up right away and remain full. The low income apartments struggled to get full, but eventually did.