MORGANTOWN — “We need to start seeing some results,” Morgantown City Councilor Mark Downs said during council’s recent committee of the whole session.
Downs’ comments came in response to a report provided by Rickie Yeager, the city’s director of development services, who updated the body on progress made following the August 2024 council directive to initiate a study on the availability of affordable housing in Morgantown and provide recommendations for policies to preserve and increase housing options.
In the report, Yeager explained that Morgantown, like the rest of the country, is suffering a dearth of affordable housing, driving up the cost of existing options. The end result is an increasing number of people either priced out of the market or left spending well above 30% of their household income on shelter, which is the threshold that determines whether housing is considered “affordable.”
According to a 2020 Morgantown housing needs assessment, which projects need in the five-year window from 2020-2025, the city has a “critical” need for more than a thousand “extremely low-income rental housing units,” meaning $550/month or less.
The need for very low-income units ($551 to $925/month) and low-income units ($926 to $1,475) is considered a “high” priority with shortages of 448 and 301 units, respectively.
These numbers were borne out in a recent report from Fairmont Morgantown Housing Authority Executive Director Christal Crouso, who explained the agency had to close its waiting list for Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers after it climbed past 1,100 names. That number doesn’t include some 150 individuals and families who have already been vetted and will be the first served if and when new vouchers become available.
FMHA currently has its full allocation of 1,289 vouchers in circulation across its four-county coverage area – 60% of which go to families in Monongalia County.
Yeager’s report laid out nearly a dozen potential programs, policies and initiatives the city could potentially explore to begin turning that tide. They included everything from first-time homebuyer programs to home rehabilitation loans, housing development incentives and city code changes regarding accessory dwelling units, housing development parking requirements and various potential zoning changes, among others.
The recommendation, he said, would be to begin facilitating community “listening sessions” in order to help prioritize which options the city wanted to focus on. The priorities could then be brought back in the first quarter of 2026 to begin workshopping legislation and programs.
“Pardon me, Rickie, but weren’t we elected to prioritize these things?” Downs asked, explaining he’s already been working with the city’s legal counsel to draft legislation regarding accessory dwelling units.
Yeager said he was aware of the draft policy.
“Our community needs us to start moving some of these things forward, and I look at this and it just looks like more planning,” Downs said, adding, “This is frustrating for me to sit here and listen to this. We have a comprehensive plan that was put in place that documented these things. That’s been done for two years … The time to move forward on affordable housing initiatives was way in the past.”
Mayor Danielle Trumble said she believes frustration is also growing within the city’s planning commission over a lack of movement on potentially beneficial zoning changes.
“I think that the planning commission has been begging to do some of this zoning work and we keep getting put off in favor of small rezonings or subdivisions, which we do a whole lot. I’m not sure that’s what most people on the planning commission would prefer. I mean certainly that needs to be done, but I think that there are people who are ready and willing to lend their expertise to doing more and we’re not being given that opportunity,” she said. “And I think people are getting frustrated.”
Yeager pushed back to some degree, explaining the city needs to be aware of all the potential outcomes before moving forward with some of these changes.
“One of the directives that you gave the city administration was how is this going to impact the real estate market. We really want input on that, right? If we go in and pass or implement inclusionary zoning in certain parts of town, what will the impact of that be? Will we see positive results? Will it move the needle? Or could it have unintended consequences,” he said. “Those are the conversations we want to have.”
Downs responded.
“I do appreciate it. I will say that, and I agree, but the loudest public input that I need to hear is under 1% population growth in the last 11 years, right? There’s a reason for that, and it’s primarily housing. We’ve got to do something,” he said.
Councillor Jenny Selin said she understands there’s been frustration over a lack of movement on this issue, but that doesn’t override the need for due diligence.
“I think that if we’re being offered this opportunity now to do this, it’s hard not to do it somewhat comprehensively,” she said. “If we just do one thing, like accessory dwelling units, and we don’t look at it comprehensively and use the skills that the people have on the planning commission and put together something that works as one bit of [many] moving parts, we’re not going to get what we need with just accessory dwelling units.”
“I’m not suggesting that’s the case,” Downs fired back. “I’m suggesting that we need to do something. We need to do something. One thing. Let’s do one thing.”
