Good evening.

I would like to call the Fairmont City Council work session to order.

The city clerk would do a roll call on members, please.

Mayor Bullion present.

Councilmember Rice.

Councilmember Moran?

Here.

Councilmember Horton?

Yes.

Councilmember Wade?

Here.

Council Mr Weber?

Yes.

Councillor Sol?

Here.

Council Member McDaniel?

Here.

Council Member Newsom.

I make a motion to excuse Deputy Mayor Rice to have a second.

Second.

Thank you.

Moving on, we have one item consideration of work session business are the is the housing needs assessment study presentation.

So I'll look to our city planner to introduce our presentation this evening.

This project was made possible in part by funding through the cultivate grant that the city had received from the West Virginia Community Development Hub with the city then funding the remainder of the study that was needed.

So this firm here is if you go look at their portfolio, has a pretty wide array of work and has done studies on numerous cities in West Virginia and within Appalachian or region here, including Huntington and many more.

Now with the city collaborating on it, and Aaron Hager, with the planning office leading that uh project for the city.

So, where are we falling short in terms of the different types of units or price range and other elements that we need to take into consideration?

I find this to be timely for two reasons, and to keep that in mind as we move forward over the next year or two.

One is that we have a number of large housing projects that are currently being proposed.

It's been quite a while since Fairmont has had large-scale housing developments being proposed in our municipal borders.

And so this is good information for us to have in mind as we are making decisions about those projects and how they're meeting the needs of our community in the future.

The other part though is we have just begun our comprehensive plan process, and we're in the process of negotiating the contract with the firm who will do that work for us.

Many of the things that are in this housing needs assessment will be put into that comprehensive plan as part of our goals for the city, including how can we do policies or initiatives and so forth in order to address the gaps that we have in the housing here in Fairmont.

So, with that, I'd like to um turn it over to Patrick Bowen, who's here with us from Bowen National Research to walk you through the study and uh hope you understand it in layman's terms much better than you and I could.

So thank you.

Thanks, Shay.

Thank you.

Thank you, folks, for having me.

Um again, Patrick Bowen of Bowen National Research.

Um we spend just about a half hour presenting.

I'll try to go a little faster.

Um certainly if you have some questions along the way, you can stop me.

Um let's jump in.

By the way, you had enough rain Columbus, Ohio.

This is this is uh unprecedented.

So short for a city dealing with a lot of issues, makes it difficult.

All right, so uh this is a study of Fairmont itself, but I didn't want to just look at the city because obviously what's in the rest of the county plays a role.

So you're gonna see references in that first bullet point to PSA, it's primary study area.

That's Fairmont.

So if you see a table graph, whatever, right?

When I say PSA, I'm talking about the city, and then the balance of the county, Marion County is the SSA.

So you're gonna see the two together, kind of compared to how they're each affecting each other, which one's growing more, which one has a higher concentration of a certain group versus another.

Um we have a lot of demographic and economic information.

I'll tell you what.

I'll just hold it too.

How about that?

Thank you.

Um, demographic economic information, it's a housing study, so obviously we have a lot of housing information, both rental and for sale.

And we looked at a lot of other things, and I will give the city staff, uh, planning department's uh staff credit.

Uh you all had a uh limited budget, but you were ambitious in what you wanted.