Georgetown opens the door to cottage courts in the town.
Monday’s Town Council meeting was packed, many there to voice support for a cottage court being proposed by the nonprofit Little Living. The first step, however, is approving the creation of cottage courts in general, and that ordinance was in front of council Monday.
Councilman Eric Evans cited stratospheric home prices in the area in voicing his support for the measure.
“I think whenever we're looking at these small homes and the design of them and where they could be, I think we're looking at something that would be healthy," he said.
Councilwoman Christina Diaz-Malone cited feedback from her constituents and the town’s urgent need for workforce housing in her support for the ordinance.
“Single mothers, veterans, most of whom are living in broken, down mobile homes, falling apart," she said.
Public comment was lengthy and sometimes impassioned, with many specifically addressing one cottage court project that could be headed to the town’s Planning Commission soon. That’s proposed by the nonprofit Little Living, which could put new houses on a former gas station site.
Little Living’s George Meringolo says his organization has already invested in getting that site ready, including dealing with toxic materials in the soil.
“We've already spent about $180,000 on the remediation," he told council members. "I just signed an approval of another $150,000. They're going to take that old gas station foundation out, they're going to dig out the dirt, they're going to put new dirt in.”
Council members voted 4-1 to approve the measure, with Councilman Penuel Barrett voting against. The new ordinance paves the way for Little Living to go before the city’s Planning Commission with specifics for its proposed development.
Council members also got a progress report from a committee examining issues around supportive housing and homelessness. That committee's chair, Linda Dennis, said the committee continues to talk to service providers, but took time to debunk some inaccuracies that she has heard from members of the public.
For example, the assertion that having supportive housing facilities in the community causes a strain on police and EMS services is not backed up by data, she said.
"In looking at three years of call data that [City Manager] Gene [Dvornick] supplied to us, it's been pretty clear that that is not the case," she said.
She also noted that, contrary to some claims, most supportive housing facilities do pay property taxes. Dennis's numbers indicate that 84% of supporting housing units do pay property taxes, amounting to just over $23,000 in revenue.
