Starved for supply, realtors in the Asheville region are listing fewer homes than at this time last year as pricing continues to climb.

Increasingly, the Town of Waynesville’s planning board has found itself at the crossroads of preservation and development as housing market pressures weigh upon the pastoral setting that drew many residents to move to Haywood County in the first place.

I am old enough that my first 1,800-square-foot house cost just $31,000 and its purchase was easily financed on my middle class salary of $14,000. Now I live a comfortable retired life in Asheville, having made an inflation-profit each time I sold a house.

Mountain Projects had much to celebrate last week. 

Short term rentals have existed in resort towns for decades, but as Airbnb and similar services have made them more popular around the country, Highlands has moved to ban most new STRs, leaving the community divided on what’s become a critical issue. 

Tribal Council voted last week to spend $15 million for the tribal government to acquire 95 acres of trust land for housing and cannabis production.

The affordable housing crisis looms as this region’s most pressing problem. And so far, no one has proposed any kind of sweeping proposal that will solve it. 

Change is difficult for most people. Watching my humble hometown turn into an unrecognizable place is a hard pill to swallow. 

As the labor shortage at Harrah’s Cherokee Casinos continues to worsen, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is considering dormitory-style employee housing that would allow it to bring in foreign workers on temporary H2B visas to support its cash cow.

Unaffordable housing, a lack of broadband infrastructure, a staggeringly low unemployment rate and a relatively high number of job openings have changed the economic development landscape in Haywood County to the point that its chief economic development arm, the Haywood Economic Development Council, must also change.