Data will be collected in the four largest cities in Washington County regarding housing demand.

Washington City Administrator Brent Hinson explained how it will help the communities that take part, “Taking a look at the other counties that have done this, they have gotten a lot of insight into what is going on in their housing market, where the shortfalls are in the market. It’s very useful then for presenting to developers that you’re trying to get interested, and we already have that in our county, we have outside developers coming and approaching the City of Riverside, for example. I think Kalona is going to have a lot of opportunities in the future. We hope that’ll also, you know, Wellman, Washington, other communities in the county, will also have that opportunity. And it’s very hard to, when you’ve got somebody who really knows what they’re doing they’re going to want to see the data in order to show further interest. You can’t just go and say, ‘Hey, we’ve got this great community, come build houses here.’ You have to have the data to be able to show them, and that’s what this does.” Washington, Kalona, Wellman and Riverside will be part of the housing demand study.

Hinson added that before 2008 Washington County had about 100 houses built per year, but since then it has dropped to almost 30. The Washington County Board of Supervisors, with a 4-0 vote, decided to not contribute $3,500 and be part of the study.