City of College Station continues push for affordable housing

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – The City of College Station continues to push for affordable housing and in their latest effort it has approved a new committee.

A Housing Action Plan Steering Committee was approved Thursday night during a city council meeting. The committee should provide community input and identify housing options for those who have been priced out of the city’s real estate market. It’s all part of the city’s goal to expand housing options and create walkable communities.

Alyssa Halle-Schramm, the city’s long range planning administrator said the committee will create a housing action plan that will look at various “tools” the city can implement to address housing affordability.

“We know that prices in our area continue to rise and housing cost can be a real burden to a lot of folks in our community, so we’re really addressing that through a lot of different ways with the city and one of those will be this new housing action plan initative and there will be a lot of ways the public can get involved with that,” Halle-Schramm said.

It’s an issue the city has heard about time and time again at public meetings and it’s something it hopes the new committee can address, Halle-Schramm said.

“Housing markets nationwide have really taken off, part of that was financing mechanisms during the pandemic when interest rates got so low that there was an influx of people buying in the market,” Halle-Schramm said.

Cherry Ruffino, a realtor with Coldwell Banker Apex said over the past five years property values have continued to go up. She said the average sale price today in College Station is $350,000, making it difficult for many to buy a home.

“Not only has property values gone up considerably, but interest rates have gone up and property taxes have gone up,” Ruffino said. “Anyone who got their tax bill this year they really noticed the increase in their property value and that of course raises your taxes.”

While the housing market has cooled off some, Ruffino said prices are likely to go up in the future.

“We are expecting it to continue to appreciate, so I do think if you need to buy a home you need to be looking now because it’s possible property values may continue to go up or will,” Ruffino said. “We very seldom see them come down in Bryan-College Station.”

On top of high prices, housing Texas A&M University students has put a strain on supply. The city has been exploring middle housing zoning for months as a way to expand opportunities in some neighborhoods.

“Students need a place to live and that can put strains on existing housing stock in the community as well,” Halle-Schramm said. “One of the things we hear often is needing more housing types, so that is what middle housing is trying to get at.”

Halle-Schramm said that the city is wrapping up the public input on middle housing they’ve had over the summer.

“Moving forward with actually city initiated rezoning for property, to zone them to a new middle housing zoning district,” Halle-Schramm said. “People can look forward to it this fall, probably in the October timeline of going to a planning and zoning commission in city council.”

Members for the Housing Action Plan Steering Committee are expected to be picked in October with public input planned to begin after the first of next year, Halle-Schramm said.