With new executive director Mary Audia the Washington Economic Development Group is resuming its quarterly housing initiative meetings.

Audia is meeting with a variety of stakeholders including city administrators, realtors, bankers, and chambers of commerce this week to discuss how to build upon the success of housing developments being built in Washington, Kalona, and Riverside and also bring more housing to cities like Wellman and Brighton, “To promote to the Coralville-Iowa City, Cedar Rapids area. You know we’re all part of one big corridor, one big eastern Iowa so we want to make sure they’re all aware of what we have available. So we’ll also do a realtors luncheon in the fall when everybody starts coming back from vacations and getting together. We’ll probably do that up at the casino or somewhere of course here in Washington County, and then just kind of do a tour of the developments going in.”

Audia adds that they will also be looking at ways of providing down payment assistance, as that may be a barrier to some looking to buy a home. She anticipates this group to meet quarterly, and she looks forward to continuing these discussions of housing that were started by previous directors, especially the late David Collins.