Despite the City of Blue Ridge voting down an affordable housing plan with the Beverly J. Searles Foundation back in May, foundation President Philip Searles continues to work toward alleviating the existing housing problem for the working class and seniors of Fannin County.
“We usually try to be a bit under the radar, but obviously, this thing kinda blew up a little bit, and we’ve never seen the amount of support we’ve seen in Blue Ridge for affordable housing anywhere, so we’re taking a different approach,” Searles said.
In pursuit of the best location for development, Searles said he is working with KB Advisory Services, which is a consulting group, to create a revitalization plan for the city.
The next step, he said, is to engage the public to figure out where they think the best location is.
“We hope to have a public meeting
within the next 30 days,” he said Wednesday, August 25. “We hope to have a final plan within 30 days after that, and we hope to have it in front of the council, we’re hoping, before the election. We want the council to adopt this revitalization plan as an official plan of the city. That’s our end goal.”
Since being voted down, Searles said he has been in contact with Mayor Donna Whitener and council members Rhonda Haight and Mike Panter to find an alternative.
“We are very much committed to doing something in Blue Ridge,” Searles said of his team. “I think it’s an excellent opportunity, and it’s greatly needed, and one of the long-term goals are gonna be that after 30 years, we’d be giving the property to the housing authority, and Traver (Aiken, Blue Ridge Housing Authority executive director), so the management is gonna be people y’all know.”
Searles confirmed that from the inception, Aiken will oversee the project and the management of the housing once it’s complete.
He explained the overarching goal is to locate property, develop it, move the existing housing authority residents into it, and then still have units left over for more residents.
Additionally, Searles said, “Any deal we do in Blue Ridge, we’re going to be giving $5,000 a year to Habitat (Habitat for Humanity of Fannin & Gilmer Counties), and that’s gonna be for upgrades in their homes, so first off, it’s gonna get washer and dryers.”
In return, he said, after speaking with Habitat for Humanity of Fannin & Gilmer Counties Executive Director Christopher Hall, the habitat will come to the Searles development every quarter to provided lessons to the residents on how to become homeowners.
“We’re not about warehousing the low-income folk, we’re about getting them, empowering them so they can, they become homeowners themselves,” Searles said.
In order to catch the “Blue Ridge look and feel” Cindy Trimble has agreed to do the interior design for the development without charge, he said.
He added that he would make The News Observer aware of any public meeting in advance to allow for community attendance.