Walton, Okaloosa officials meet to discuss housing challenges

The Okaloosa - Walton Housing Summit, hosted by the Okaloosa and Walton County Health Improvement Partnership Committees, was held on Monday, May 13, 2024, at the Niceville Community Center. Topics included Live Local Act updates from the legislative session, economic and health impacts of housing, and related strategies.

Walton County Health Department Director Holly Holt explained the need for the summit. “Housing is an essential component to the growth of our healthy community. A healthy community should be one where an individual or family should not have to choose between housing and health.”

Attendees included State Representative Shane Abbott, Walton District 2 Commissioner Danny Glidewell, Walton County Planning Director Mac Carpenter, Walton County Economic Development Alliance Director Uriah Matthews and numerous Okaloosa County officials.

Representative Shane Abbott said he was struck by the number of public and private agencies that participated in the summit. “Everybody who is involved in housing in some shape, form or fashion was in the room. So that was amazing. There was something said in the early session that I thought was really good, which was that your local governments can look to see where they would like growth and housing to be at - and incentivize those areas. If the county has an area they think ‘This would be a good place to have infrastructure, and we want to try to steer housing and growth here’, that’s where we’ll incentivize it.

“We’re in a unique situation with both counties,” said Rep. Abbott. “We’re back to just pure supply and demand. We are in two of the fastest-growing counties in the entire state, the entire country, and so the demand is extremely high and when demand is that high, you lose affordability. I know everybody wants to be able to have affordable housing close to work-places, but sometimes you just have to look at the growth picture and go ‘That’s not going to work. I can’t put affordable housing on 30-A where all the restaurants are.’
Rep. Abbott said affordable housing can be done, but it won’t be easy due to land values. “By the time you buy the piece of sand it’s on, ‘affordable’ went out the window. We may be able to do affordable housing, but we may have to sacrifice driving distance. Probably, if we moved over to Holmes County and Washington County, we could probably build housing significantly cheaper than we can in Walton County.”

Abbott explained that the average sale price for a home in Okaloosa County is $300,000. In Walton County, it’s over $500,000. “When you have a demand like that, you can’t make housing affordable,” he said. “Then throw in the inflation rate, it just makes it even harder. It’s back to supply and demand.”

Commissioner Danny Glidewell noted that lack of truly affordable housing is not only one of the biggest problems in Walton County, but also among the most complex. “There are no easy solutions. Everybody recognizes the problem. We have a huge influx of people because Florida is where everybody wants to live,” he said. “Meanwhile, interest rates have gone up to where mortgages are not affordable. That’s not just mortgages on single family residents, that’s mortgage rates on multi-family structures, as well. So, developers are struggling to get financing for their projects. All those factors put together, and the huge inflationary increases in building costs – hardly anybody that is on a working wage can come close to affording any house at those rates.”

Glidewell said, “One of the solutions that was presented involved having government make land available to developers at a lower or no cost. That could be challenging politically, but it might be the only way we can get large production of housing. The underlying problem is ageless and simple. It’s basic economics – supply and demand,” he said. “Right now, we’ve got no supply and high demand. That’s going to create cost increases and that’s just the laws of economics.”

Economic Development Alliance Director Uriah Matthews also noted that, “The escalating housing costs have not only placed a burden on our residents but have also significantly increased the demands on nonprofits and community services. Housing is an essential element of economic development. The current pricing trends not only reflect a high demand but also highlight the urgent need for further development to stabilize costs. A healthy housing market is crucial for the well-being of our residents and the overall economic vitality of our community,” he added.

“As a representative of WCHIP, I would like to thank all of the partners who participated in the successful Housing Summit,” said Walton Health Department Director Holly Holt. “Key speakers, panel discussions and breakout sessions were held to move the discussion forward. WCHIP and OCHIP have workgroups taking steps to address housing in our community.”