A city is a series of interconnected parts all working together, very similar to a machine.
Residents need housing opportunities, businesses need workers and customers, citizens need safety services and infrastructure, and governments need revenue to provide them. All of these areas intersect and depend upon each other.
If one area is lacking, the others don’t perform well. It’s no secret that Mount Vernon lacks abundant, quality housing.
When this happens, businesses can’t fill open positions. Places like our healthcare establishments have trouble finding patient caregivers for our loved ones. Our manufacturers have difficulty finding workers to produce their goods.
For reference, nearly one-fourth of Knox County’s workers are employed in manufacturing. The service industry has difficulty finding workers.
These are servers who wait on us, and the associates who help us find us where things are in the store.
Furthermore, without housing, the market isn’t deep enough to support abundant shopping and dining opportunities.
How often has it been asked on social media, “Why don’t we have this store or that restaurant?”
Well, the answer is simple, Mount Vernon needs more customers to attract them.
But not all housing is equal.
As the Area Development Foundation has been advocating for several years, the City of Mount Vernon should continue its commitment to attracting a variety of housing types and price points into the city limits.
Generally, a healthy city should have housing that meets the needs of its citizens, workers and businesses.
The city doesn’t currently have that, but it could. In Mount Vernon, that would look like housing that:
1. Is affordable to a broad range of people, particularly workforce and seniors. – In today’s economy of high construction costs and high interest rates, affordability can be achieved by reducing lot size and clustering homes together, like with townhouses or duplexes.
2. Is a mix of older and newer units. – In the historic districts the old stately homes are very charming. However, historic homes are often expensive to maintain, and many people wish to live in newer homes with updated styling and less maintenance.
The last subdivision style development in Mount Vernon was built in 2008. The average house in Mount Vernon is 51 years old.
3. Is a mix of unit types that appeal to today’s buyers. Today’s youngest and oldest buyers prefer smaller homes that require less maintenance and are within walking distance to shopping, dining and recreation opportunities.
4. Is of a high quality that adds to the character of the city. The city is fortunate to have many attractive and interconnected neighborhoods that include sidewalks, large front porches and a variety of architectural styles that allow neighbors to interact. Future housing should include these as well.
5. Is built near existing infrastructure like roads and utility lines. Housing built in existing areas reduces build costs, is near amenities and transportation for quick access to shopping, job centers, recreation, and healthcare.
Currently, Mount Vernon lacks a mix of newer owner-occupied housing, particularly single family and smaller “starter” types of housing.
The Foundation urges the city administration and citizens to continue to support bringing new housing of this type to the city so that businesses can fill open positions at vital employers like healthcare, manufacturing and in the service industry.
Jeff Gottke
President, Area Development Foundation, Inc.