2025 Savannah Housing Summit calls for political, moral courage to solve housing crisis (2025)

Last week’s Attainable Housing Stakeholder Summit, hosted by Housing Savannah Inc. at Savannah Technical College's Eckburg Auditorium, left audience members with the sinking feeling that the ideas shared and the discussions held were conversations Savannah and surrounding coastal Georgia communities should have had more than a decade ago—when the first efforts to court an automobile manufacturer occurred.

Former Chamblee, Georgia mayor Eric Clarkson spoke about how a forward-thinking transit corridor led to the creation of transit-oriented zoning, which created higher density and walkable neighborhoods that later invited private investment. Despite community fears about more people and—gasp—renters, this area has become one of the most desirable in the bedroom community.

Georgia State Rep. Spencer Frye, who also serves as executive director of the Athens Area Habitat for Humanity, spoke about how investment in attainable housing offered the largest quantifiable and qualifiable return on investment, because research has shown time and again that quality, affordable, stable housing anchors families, helps children perform better in schools, fosters community and civic engagement, and improves the transfer of generational wealth.

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Meanwhile, data presented during the summit showed how woefully behind Chatham, Bryan, Effingham, Liberty and Bulloch counties are in the political will to address the existing attainable housing crunch.

For context, affordable housing is priced between 30% to 80% of area median income (AMI); workforce housing is 80% to 120%; and market-priced housing is above the 120% mark.

A recent housing study, presented by Betsy McGriff of Georgia Institute of Technology's Center for Economic Development Research, revealed that based on the area's median household income of $66,171, most coastal Georgia families could only afford a house priced just under $205,000, which is on the high end of their capacity.

In Chatham, the median price of a single-family home is $337,000. In Bryan, it is over $400,000, and in Effingham, it is close to the mid-$300s. The region's housing supply is about two months, meaning that the current inventory will last two months at the current rate of sales if no new homes are built or added. A healthy housing market is four to six months’ worth of inventory. The last time Savannah had a healthy housing supply was 2012.

The rental affordability gap for safe, quality shelter is even more stark: Based on median income, a renter can afford to pay $1,420 a month, but the median monthly rental price in Savannah is more than $2,000, according to Housing Savannah data.

Georgia Tech’s projected community housing demand over the next eight years is sobering: A shortage of more than 37,250 units among the four counties of Bryan, Bulloch, Chatham and Effingham, where more than 16,000 people representing more than 6,400 households are expected to locate. Remember, Chatham County alone has had a deficit of more than 10,000 units since 2020, and that deficit hits hardest in starter and missing middle housing.

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Zoning reform is essential to creating attainable housing

Whitney Shephard, principal engineer, planner and co-founder for Savannah-based Transport Studio, cautioned that “without land use reform, we cannot balance jobs with housing.”

Using overlay maps, Shephard, who also chairs the Chatham County Housing Coalition, illustrated that by 2050 at the latest, the four-county region would build out all of its existing residentially zoned land, especially if local planners, zoning commissions and elected leaders continued to prioritize single-family home development over traditional neighborhood designs that incorporated duplexes, triplexes and quadplexes as well as accessory dwelling units such as garage apartments. More than 75% of the region’s housing is characterized by low-density single-family homes.

To meet current and future needs, Shephard called for zoning reform that creates village centers surrounded by multiple housing types for all income levels, ages and mobility, from seniors who desire to age in place and young professionals to growing families. Zoning then would allow for at least eight dwelling units per acre (for context, Savannah’s Landmark Historic District is the only neighborhood within this region that meets that standard) and infill housing that privileges walkability and creates avenues to redevelop suburban office parks and commercial strip malls for housing (much like what is being done at the southern end of Oglethorpe Mall). These mixed-use and mixed-income communities foster the critical mass that brings in grocers and other service-oriented investments that minimize traffic impacts.

Overshadowing Shephard’s presentation, however, was the city of Savannah’s recent decision to water down an affordable housing density bonus overlay program, where at least four out of seven of the city's neighborhoods originally included have signaled their intent to opt out of increasing density to include housing types, such as duplexes and quads, that already exist within their boundaries.

The absence at the summit of city leaders and planners from across the region did not go unnoticed by reporters in the room, underscoring how critical building public and political courage will be to solving our region’s housing problem.

Amy Paige Condon is a content coach, editor and reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at ACondon@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: 2025 savannah housing summit frames challenges, offers solutions