Beaufort Co. considers affordable housing projects for vacant properties

BEAUFORT COUNTY, S.C. (WTOC) - Beaufort County has identified 12 pieces of land that could be used for future affordable housing projects.

County leaders met this week to talk about the partnerships they could form to get the process moving forward.

For years, there has been a need for affordable/workforce housing options for people commuting into or living in Beaufort County.

Now there are already some projects underway, but now the county is getting involved by looking properly they own that also provide more options to address this need.

The need for affordable and workforce housing in the county has been around for years.

“I’ve been on council since 2015 and at that time people didn’t believe there was a problem about workforce/affordable housing, but we did a study and found that there is an issue,” said Alice Howard, Beaufort County Council Chairwoman.

And for Alice Howard, the Beaufort County Chair, it hit home when her daughter moved home a few years ago from college.

“She couldn’t find a place to live as a teacher, and teachers should be able to find a place to live,” said Howard.

Following the study, officials looked at 500 county-owned vacant properties and dwindled the list of 500 down to 12 viable options.

“Areas that are close enough to services like water and wastewater,” said Howard.

Each vary in size from enough to room to build a single home to nine acres of land.

And now they are looking to work with other groups to turn these dreams of affordable housing projects into reality.

“We’ll look at either selling them maybe or giving them to Habitat for Humanity or other groups and see where we go,” said Howard.

These possible projects will join ones already underway like in the one in Bluffton, where Beaufort Memorial is building 100 apartment units and a hospital off Buckwalter Parkway.

“We want people to work and live in the same area,” said Howard.

Howard says that her council is committed to getting this process rolling and some serious steps could be taken in the coming months.