Miller And Associates To Conduct Housing Study In Orchard

By Natalie Bruzon
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Orchard is growing. Businesses are expanding, new clubs are springing up and families are moving back.

What is one area of Orchard which needs to catch up? Housing.

That’s why the village, along with seven other CORE communities, applied for a housing study grant to better understand the community’s’ housing needs.

Miller and Associates has been working with CORE Development Inc. communities for several years now. Brenda Jensen, Certified Community Planner at Miller and Associates and the project manager for the CORE housing studies, said that these studies are a way of determining housing needs in the community and addressing specific issues.

“We do this (housing studies) all over Nebraska and there’s always housing challenges in each community. It’s figuring out what those specific challenges are and how to deal with them,” explained Jensen. “For example, housing price points might be too low or housing price points might be too high and people can’t afford to live there. Of if there’s not an availability of housing or maybe the houses that are available aren’t meeting the needs of people who are wanting to live in these communities, those are issues we address.”

Aside from providing aid to each other and other support, CORE communities are really focused on community growth and development, especially housing needs.

“So if a community is a member of CORE, usually one person from each community sits on the CORE Development board,” explained Jensen. “They try to apply for grants and do things that are really going to help improve the housing within each community or within their region.”

Jensen explained that CORE has been around since the 1990s, and they’ve had good success in the past of getting grant funds from the state to do owner occupied housing rehabilitation.

However, grants such as the housing study grant Orchard was awarded have become more and more competitive, as funds are diminishing and demand increasing. Miller and Associates dedicates a lot of time to helping small communities grow by assisting in grant writing. 

“We’re trying to do everything we can to help CORE and help all these communities to write the best applications so they can get funded,” Jensen said. “So one of those things we were thinking about—we as in Miller and Associates—is if each one of these communities had a housing study, we’d have a much better understanding of what the specific needs in each community is instead of just saying, ‘Okay, well we need funds to help with housing rehab.’ We could actually have the data and the input from the public to show the need and the support for the projects and hopefully show support for each grant application.”

Jensen originally wrote one application for a grant encompassing eight communities in the area, but realized that each community needed a separate grant. Although the process was long, each community was eventually awarded a grant so that the housing studies are taking place with little financial effect to Orchard and other communities involved.


What Happens During the Study
Now that the board has signed the agreement to begin the housing study, what happens next?

“We will come do what we call a windshield survey or a housing assessment,” explained Jensen. “We’re looking at the exterior conditions of housing, and that’s just to get kind of a real time analysis of what the existing housing stock looks like.” 

Following the housing assessment, a public informational session will be conducted. 

According to Jensen, the session will likely take place in October. This will be a time for Orchard residents to provide input and talk about Orchard’s housing strengths and challenges, and how to turn challenges into opportunities.

In addition to the housing assessment and public meeting, Miller and Associates will also be doing research. 

“We’re doing data analysis and research in the background,” Jensen said, “looking at census data and American community survey data and taking all that data analysis and turning it into real time information for the community.”

The housing study team will talk to local Realtors and landlords and try to figure out what these individuals see as some of the housing trends in the community or within their region. 

The end product will be a comprehensive report, said Jensen.

“We put it all into a written study or report and we will go back and present it to each community individually.”


Outcomes
Although to many Orchard’s housing needs might seem obvious, a housing study provides a more informed analysis of the housing condition in town.

In 2014, Neligh, who is also a part of CORE, had a housing study conducted. 

Two years later, based on some of the needs made clear through the housing study, the city is in the process of building a new residential subdivision and is talking about breaking ground on an independent living facility.

“Through this study we are able to determine what the specific need or multiple needs are and come up with objectives and strategies to try to meet some of the struggles,” emphasized Jensen.

However, Miller and Associates won’t be the ones to make sure Orchard follows through on the recommendations made through the study.  

“We can’t be there all the time to help with some of the implementation,” Jensen explained. “I try to make sure that we work with the community through the study process so that we can create some sort of action group. It might be the city council or the village board, a separate sub-committee or sometimes it’s the economical development group.” 

Whatever the group, Jensen wants to make sure there’s some type of group committed to following through with the needs of the community as outlined by the study, because this housing study is just another step to making Orchard a stronger community.