As some communities in Washington County are in talks about housing development, a discussion was held Tuesday on what has been holding the county back.

Washington Economic Development Group (WEDG) brought together local lenders, realtors, builders, developers, landowners, and government officials at the Kirkwood Washington County Regional Center to talk about housing development challenges and how to move forward.

WEDG Executive Director Ed Raber says the county is not seeing nearly as much single family home development as there was before 2007, “Developing new opportunities for housing is expensive. [With] a new subdivision there’s a lot of startup costs in our county and in most counties there’s not a lot of revenue made by installing roads and so there’s a lot of costs that you have to overcome by building lots or selling homes on those building lots, or selling whatever kind of development that is, it might be multifamily it might be duplexes or zero lot lines or townhomes. We haven’t seen a lot of that in Washington County but the upfront costs is frequently a barrier and there’s a lot of risks to that, too.”

Raber says the group reached an understanding, “There was a recognition that maybe there’s going to have to be a lot of partnership and that may be things like lending institutions partnering together to tackle some things that might be costly, [and] how cities are a partner in that, not that they haven’t been, but it certainly renewed that interest that that’s the way things are going to have to move forward.”

It was said at the discussion that the county is in its heyday, with Riverside in talks for a 70-home development and Kalona purchasing a 54-acre property for potential housing, but the county has to figure out how to take advantage of the opportunity.