Lake of the Ozarks Area Housing Study
The Lake Region is unique for its beauty, its recreational features, its people, topography, and its quality of life. These characteristics attract people at all stages of their lives for opportunity, experience, pleasure, and retirement. However, one thing our region shares with many other places is the struggle to provide its present and prospective residents with places to live that provide for their needs at costs they can afford. Because of this, the Lake of the Ozarks Regional Economic Development Council (LOREDC) requested proposals from consultants with extensive experience in housing planning and policy to complete a comprehensive housing study for our region.
What Is The Plan?
This Lake of the Ozarks housing study will analyze all aspects of the regional housing market in our three counties: Camden, Miller and Morgan, on both regional and local levels. It will examine housing supply, demand, and affordability in areas as localized as zip code districts and individual communities. It will address the unusual problems of a community of 124,000 permanents and an even larger number of seasonal residents distributed throughout an ear that lacks large cities. It will also focus on specialized concerns such as where new housing can be built and will review available housing types, such as condominiums, and how they can be redeployed to meet other housing needs. Additionally, the study will examine the forces that are currently directing housing development in various directions.
We have selected RDG Planning & Design of Omaha Nebraska to complete this challenging study. RDG is well-known for innovative housing planning and policy development in cities and regions across the Midwest, including many Missouri cities and towns through the Community Housing Assessment Team process. The firm is active in the region, currently developing Camdenton's new comprehensive plan, Destination Camdenton. We are now asking for your assistance as we assemble resources necessary to carry out the plan and implement its recommendations.
Why Do We Need This Plan?
Though we understand the economic importance of service to the leisure and retirement communities, we also know that we must diversify and accommodate for the future. We must attract new enterprises, the creative entrepreneurs, and the young households who will become our future civic and business leaders. These people (including our own children and grandchildren) must find a place to establish themselves in the Lake Region. We must also think of the conditions of our buildings and the continued need for our communities to renew themselves - to use resources effectively, to establish goals and to execute policies that help us meet these goals.
Indeed, housing development is economic development. Without available, affordable, quality housing, we will not be able to accommodate the people we need to move forward.
What Will The Plan Include?
The Housing Study will include a thorough analysis for all aspects of the Lake region's housing market, but it will go beyond that, providing practical recommendations and tools to help us address housing issues and opportunities. To this end, the plan will include:
- A participatory process that includes a variety of people with a stake in housing development, finance, and services. This process will include in-depth interviews and discussions, consumer and employee surveys, and workshops.
- A detailed analysis of demographic, economic, and market factors that influence housing development and decisions.
- An assessment of regional and local housing affordability, needs, special demands, regulations, and delivery capacity.
- An analysis of sites development opportunities and reinvestment possibilities in the Lake Region.
- Answers to unique questions and issues in the region, such as absorption of condominium inventory, effectiveness of different regulations and development standards, and the economics of resort and retirement housing and their impact on overall markets.
- Detailed and specific recommendations on how to meet goals and address specific and unmet housing needs.
Who Will Use the Plan?
The Housing Study is designed to be a strategic and frequently used road map to identifying and meeting our current and future housing priorities. This tool will be used by a number of groups and individuals, including:
- Development organizations at the Lake of the Ozarks such as LOREDC, the Council of Local Governments, and other groups who make policy, conceive and execute programs, and seek funding to meet those housing needs.
- Service providers who serve specific populations and need information to support their work and evaluate their effectiveness.
- Local and county governments, who establish priorities, evaluate development proposals, and establish the plans that become the basis for action.
- Housing professionals, including developers, builders, realtors, and financial institutions, who make decisions that influence the supply and construction of housing.
- Existing and prospective businesses, who use housing supply to influence their investment decisions.
- Consumers, prospective residents, and a wide variety of other users.
We hope that this information helps explain both the importance of this study and the types of challenges that it will address. A small investment in this study will pay major dividends as we focus our attention on this system, so important to the future of our region.
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