PHOTO BY JOHN FRYMAN / THE VILLAGE REPORTER
OPEN HOUSE … The Williams County Port Authority hosted an open house on 402 Empire Street in Montpelier on Friday as a couple of potential buyers walk through the kitchen area.
By: John Fryman
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
john@thevillagereporter.com
In order to meet the growing demand for housing, the Williams County Port Authority held an open house on Friday at 402 Empire Street, in Montpelier.
The newly built move-in-ready house covering 1,040 square feet had been just finished earlier in the day before finally opening up to interested buyers.
“The Port Authority’s goal is to build workforce housing around the county,” said Port Authority chairman Dave Newcomer.
“We are very, very short of housing. And so, this is just an example which we like the public to come and look at what we’re building.”
Currently, the Port Authority has three houses under construction and the latest one (Empire Street) is now ready for a buyer. “We have houses in virtually every town in the county,” pointed out Newcomer. “And we’re looking to building more of them.”
Several years ago, a study was done, and it was said that people were complaining about the shortage of housing in Williams County.
“We have a severe shortage of housing and workforce,” said Newcomer. “We can’t get people to come here because they can’t move here. There is no place for them to move to.”
Newcomer expressed concern about losing the younger population because they either come out of Northwest State Community College or Four County Career Center that have good skills and they can go to work to get good jobs, but don’t want to live with mom and dad.
“We want to keep them, so that’s what we’re doing to build housing,” said Newcomer. “We need to take care of ourselves, our kids, our senior citizens and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Constructing houses is one of several positive things the Port Authority is doing right now. “This is a good example of what we are doing,” said Newcomer.
“We like the people to see it and we’re proud of it. They get a lot of bang for their buck and it’s a good house at an affordable price.”
The one-story house features three bedrooms, two baths, an attached garage and a patio and is listed at $180,000 through Rachel Walz, realtor for Caldwell Banker Classic Properties in Bryan.
“We can help people get in at a reasonable cost,” said Port Authority construction manager Sean Rupp. “I mostly work with factories, industrial people and that’s been a problem they’re having is finding places for people to live once they move here.”
“So, that was kind of the reason I got involved to see if we can figure out a way to make it work for us. We’re trying to show people that it will sell and will bring up the value in older neighborhoods and we do this kind of thing.”
The newly built Empire Street house which began construction in November 2024, is the first one built this year and the 15th, that the Port Authority has completed over the last three years.
“We got three more started and we’re excited about to see how people like this new design,” said Rupp. “This is the third one of this design we have built. They sold so fast, we really haven’t showed people what they looked like.”
He said that it took a couple of years to figure out how to make it happen in house construction.
“We came up with this approach on buying unused lots in the cities there was already water and sewer to put the houses on and meet the price range,” said Rupp.
“The big thing with meeting the price range right now is making a little bit smaller. These are 1,040-square foot houses that we build to get them in that affordable price range.”
Board member Ashley Epling said there was a housing study done back in December 2024, and it demonstrated the county had a shortage of 400 houses.
“It (survey) showed we needed a mixture of houses,” noted Epling. “It wasn’t just single-family, but it was also multi-family, senior, low income. Unfortunately, our situation isn’t unique to Williams County.”
“The hard thing that we have is telling our story and getting developers to come here and develop.”
“So, the Port Authority is taking that initiative just for some development. It’s making a small impact, but it’s still not enough that we need.”
Epling said that local manufacturers are expanding or want to expand, and their main concern is workforce and where we get them from.
“It’s kind of the chicken or the egg thing,” added Epling. “So, to get new houses and the people come for the jobs, we have the jobs to build the houses.”
“But at the end of the day, no one is building houses and it’s the ultimate problem. All our communities are getting their properties identified and basically community preparedness so the developer can see.”
“We want to develop here. Here’s the land we have, we have the utilities, just trying to eliminate the risk for developers hoping they will come.”