THOMASVILLE — The city of Thomasville’s Planning Department is looking to improve its housing development plans as studies have shown the current rental market is unbalanced. 

“It’s a bit of a complex situation,” said city planner Kenny Thompson. “The fact is we recently did a housing study looking at the existing markets and our potential future market. One of the things we found coming out of the study was we have a high demand in our rental market and that we really do not have the availability of rental housing to meet that market.”

The uneven balance of supply and demand in the rental market has affected Thomasville for years. 

“It’s something we’ve been aware of for the past four years,” Thompson said, “but it’s only been within the past couple years that we’ve actually been able to start putting some definite numbers to that and it’s something that, as we’ve become aware of, we’ve become more active and are looking to address our housing issues.”

The wait lists at local apartment complexes have shown the results of the unbalanced rental market, but Thompson and his department are relying on new strategies for potentially faster improvements.    

“We’ve been told that there are waiting lists at every single one of the apartment complexes around Thomasville, some with multiple years of people wanting to move in,” he said. “So, we know that there is a lack of quality affordable rental housing and right now, we’re working on coming up with some strategies to find out why exactly that is and if there are any steps we can take to help encourage and expand the rental market.”

One of the strategies presented by the housing study includes eliminating the guess work when it comes to rental housing units Thomasville can support and housing preferences for residents. Thompson said doing so will improve everyone’s understanding of the rental market.

There are also plans to improve rental housing quality by changing the City Planning Department’s development code.

“We’re also looking at updating our development code to make the building quality easier to build, so the pieces of this puzzle that we can’t affect, whether it’s through zoning and regulatory means, are definitely things that we’re looking into doing to make our counters available as possible to increase the housing market,” Thompson said. 

Developers not coming in and housing in Thomasville has had a huge impact on the rental market. Thompson also said availability of land, zoning and residents renovating homes also have played a role in the market’s decline. 

While these components and more continue to hurt the rental market, Thompson has faith in the organizations also dedicated to restoring Thomasville’s rental market. 

“We actually have a political group called the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing and they are actually charged with looking into and trying to find some of the roots to the issues around affordable and quality housing in Thomasville,” he said. “So, we do have some organizations that are aware and that are working to try to meet the needs.”

With all the efforts being put into improving the market, Thompson hopes to see some changes and said some residents can help improve the market. 

“We’re hoping fairly soon. We as a city are not housing developers, so we can relax any of the regulatory barriers that we have around housing, we can encourage people to build on bigger lots and renovate homes, but a lot of that is actually going to depend on the market and the people who are renovating homes or building new housing construction,” he said.

Thompson advises anyone looking to move to Thomasville not to give up and be on the lookout for any new housing opportunities. 

“At this point, be patient and keep looking,” he said. “This is something we’re hoping to see some new housing opportunities coming online soon. We know that it’s an issue. It’s a basic need. I do believe in the near future we will begin to see developers.”