Lake County Housing Update

Members of the Lake County Board, the Two Harbors and Silver Bay City Coun­cils, both the Two Har­bors and Lake County HRAs, and members of the public met last week to discuss ongo­ing housing projects and development op­portunities. This is the second such meeting and is an indication of the growing collabo­ration between these groups as they work collectively to address the need for affordable housing.

One of the founda­tional moves that has taken place over the past year, that is help­ing to get projects off the ground, is a fund­ing structure that has been put in place to finance the acquisition of land and to fund construction projects. Readers will like­ly remember that the Lake County Board helped establish the Lake County Housing Trust Fund last year. The fund has been set up to help the Lake County HRA imple­ment projects that will create both workforce and market rate hous­ing within the county. The fund is a revolving fund that will continu­ally help finance hous­ing projects in Lake County as the money that is generated when a project home is sold will be returned to the fund to finance the next project.

A joint powers agreement is current­ly in the works. This agreement will estab­lish contractual lan­guage between the var­ious agencies and will help define and focus their working relation­ships.

One of the current projects that is under­way in Two Harbors is a single family pilot project house on 4th Avenue. That structure is described as a one and a half story, three bedroom, two bath­room single family home. The floor plan sports a master bed­room on the ground floor and an upstairs space with two bed­rooms and additional space that can either be utilized as a family room or can be modi­fied to accommodate two additional bed­rooms. Construction is nearing completion and the 4th Avenue house should be ready to sell this Spring.

The Lake County HRA has been work­ing with the County Board and city officials to identify and acquire tax forfeited land for future development. The Circle Building on 2nd Avenue in Two Harbors, was acquired recently as part of a downtown revitaliza­tion effort. Discussions are underway to decide how that property will be developed. There has been some talk of creating a mixed use development that would allow for both apartments and com­mercial spaces.

The Silverpoint II project in Silver Bay, unfortunately, did not get selected for grant funding in 2024 but city officials will be submitting a grant ap­plication again and hopefully will be able to get that project off the ground soon.

Two Harbors Coun­cil Member, Robin Glaser, brought up the fact that Lake Coun­ty has aging residents who want to remain in the County and would like to sell their single family homes so that they can move into townhomes or apart­ments. While there are currently few pro­visions for this, ev­eryone agrees that ad­dressing this need is important and will free up existing homes that can be put on the mar­ket. There are current­ly concept plans being discussed to develop facilities that will ex­pand the opportunity to develop apartment, senior and workforce housing. There are numerous tax forfeit­ed lands available and both Silver Bay and Two Harbors have un­developed lots that can be utilized. The fact is that there are reasons to be excited about the possibilities for afford­able housing in our communities. The in­creased collaboration between the County, Cities and Housing Authorities is moving us forward on getting the affordable housing that is needed in Lake County.