It was a wonderful day at RCSE on Friday as we were able to sing to Bruce Montgomery in honor of his 85th Birthday! President Mark Sprosty reminded everyone of the book drive for Haven, the upcoming November social, and the ongoing November service project of holiday cards for senior citizens. Once all Rotary business items were discussed, Kim Campbell introduced our two speakers - Bri Paxton and Laura Lane McKinnon.
Bri began her presentation with a brief history of housing and zoning. She said if you own your own property, then you can control your own destiny. She talked about discrimination in property ownership and gave examples of this during the New Deal and Jim Crow laws. Savannah needs more affordable housing because the area median income is $56,000 while the area median home price is $324,000. That is an affordability gap of $140,000 meaning the median family can not afford the median home.
Laura Lane began by explaining Housing Savannah saying they are here to education, advocate and fundraise for housing. We currently have a 10,000 unit deficit in housing in our market. Around 73% of that 10,000 needs to be housing for the lower to moderate price range. Laura Lane believes zoning should be overhauled. She would like to see zoning revert back to the way it used to be which would allow more quads and duplexes to be built. A member asked "what can we do to help?" We can talk to our elected officials about zoning and we have to start thinking about the greater good. Density does not affect housing values. The presentation ended by saying if we do not do something to help with the current housing situation, there will be an increase in homelessness.