I hear a lot about affordable housing and ask myself the question, "What exactly is affordable housing?" Affordable housing is different from low income housing. I have talked to the City of Asheville about their programs to assist builders doing affordable housing. I was impressed with the person I talked to at the city who was both knowledgeable and helpful, as well as by the amount of information available and the programs being offered.

The first program I looked at offers a fifty percent rebate on the building permit fee and a rebate on the Metropolitan Sewer District fee. The housing, of course, needs to meet the city council criteria for maximum house value. The second program is based on the income of the purchaser and offers a low interest loan. It appears that the city is trying to work with builders to provide housing at a reasonable price. I am concerned about this because even though I build homes in the high-end custom category, the people who work with me have a hard time affording a home in this area.

Some of the reasons affordable housing is not affordable are the same reasons all housing is expensive here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, especially when you compare it to the upstate of South Carolina and the counties east of us. We build custom homes all over western North Carolina and ship timber kits to other states such as Tennessee, Ohio, Michigan and Maryland. I quite often have customers ask about the cost of building in the mountains and have invested some time in analyzing this.

I have observed for example that when I get a notice from the local rock quarry listing the new pricing, the cost for stone in Buncombe County is always $1.00 to $1.50 more per ton than their quarry in McDowell County. This affects the stone that goes under the basement floor slab, the stone for the septic system, the driveway and the stone that goes in concrete. This is a kind of trickle up effect.

I have been told that gas is higher here because of the cost of trucking up the mountain. I don't know if I am ready to swallow that line. When we recently needed some 5/8" OSB board for a job south of town, our supervisor stopped at a lumberyard in Asheville and bought the sheets we needed. When I saw the bill come across the financial administrator's desk, I noticed the amount. I called the lumberyard in Black Mountain where I usually buy and their price was a full $5.00 per sheet cheaper for the same product.

I recently priced an order of interior doors at a lumberyard in Fletcher and at the lumberyard in Black Mountain. The lumberyard in Fletcher was almost $4000.00 higher on the 33 doors in the order. The point is you must check your suppliers to control your cost. Not everyone is gouging extra because it must come up the mountain, but if we are willing to pay extra, they will take it from us every time.

The cost of concrete is an interesting study, and I have poured concrete in many different states all over the east coast and the mid west. Working in the mountains I observed this difference. When I poured concrete in any region that is flat and I ordered 30 yards of concrete I would get three trucks with ten yards on each truck. When I order thirty yards here in the mountains I get four trucks with seven yards each and a clean up load of two yards. That is two extra trucks and two extra drivers plus 40% more fuel. And don't forget the crushed stone "a main part of the concrete" is already more expensive. Some of the jobs we do are on mountainsides where they can only carry six yards of concrete. The problem in taking a concrete truck with more than six or seven yards on it up a steep mountain road is that the concrete rolls out the back. We also have many jobs that require use of a concrete pump, adding more to the cost. We have done jobs that require two pumps, pumping from one pump to another to get it far enough up the long narrow drive.

Steeply sloped lots we have built on can require extra work to establish a bench to set the house on, and many have required sub basements (a basement under the basement) to get the house up to a grade that is accessible from the road or drive. In this area of the country we talk about "mountain flat", this is not level but rather a sloping bench where we can get a house site. We also talk about the view side of the house and look at the cost of opening up the view. It is pretty certain that these steep lots will require some structural steel and I haven't mentioned the large deck everyone wants. All of these things lead to a more expensive house.

We have a lot of people moving to Western North Carolina from all over the southeast and the north; I even have some inquiries from California. People moving here often have money which allows them to build without bank financing. I do not have a definitive answer on how to make housing more affordable for our workers but somehow we all need to work at keeping affordability in line.

Harry Hannah

Blue Ridge Timber Frame Inc.