LEWES, Del. - The Lewes Affordable Housing Workshop brought up various ideas to make affordable housing more accessible.
A newly formed subcommittee for this will explore the use of accessory dwelling units (ADU) like in-law suites or carriage homes, also focusing on fixing the recently annexed Donovan Smith mobile home community's sewer issues to fill vacant lots, and reserving units for low income housing in Dutchman's Harvest apartment complex.
Lewes City Manager Ann Marie Townshend said that many of those in need of affordable housing work in various industries like food service, medical, and first responders, and teachers, "Inventory of rental housing at an affordable level just simply isn't there and it's becoming a crisis issue for the school district as well as some other employers."
According to Kevin Gilmore, the CEO for Sussex County Habitat for Humanity, affordable housing means a household spends 30% or less of their income on housing. However 30% of Sussex County households spend more than that.
Resources like Milford Housing Development Corporation (MHDC) are working with the city to find programs and create affordable housing options.
A new apartment complex, Dutchman's Harvest, will reserve 42 apartment units for income based housing, "When it comes to setting aside a certain number of units in a planned community I think it's a great idea. The project that we're involved with in Lewes, that's exactly what they did." said David Moore with MHDC.
But Townshend said there are concerns with the implementation of ADU's, "People are worried that they will become short term rentals and that it won't fix or be part of the fix to the housing problem - it's really important to make sure we develop sound policy that will achieve the goals of and not have adverse unintended consequences."
For more information on Lewes' plans to address affordable housing and resources available to help current situations, you can visit their website.