SEVIER COUNTY — Tennessee Housing authorities are making it more attractive for developers to build affordable places to live in Sevier County.
State and local leaders met in Sevierville Wednesday to announce more than 500 new units of workforce housing that will be built with the help of Low Income Housing Tax Credits from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency.
Specifically, the county said the stat will back projects to meet the need for more affordable rental housing to solve a housing shorting and meet 1,000 units of affordable housing needed according to a county study.
On Tuesday, the THDA approved $1.5 million in LIHTC awards to help build two new apartment developments with roughly 130 units in the Sevierville area.
That's on top of awards already in place to build 400 apartments in Sevierville, Kodak and Gatlinburg.
In total, there have been three rounds of tax credits investing $65.1 million in equity from the THDA to help the county recover from the Nov. 2016 wildfires that destroyed thousands of structures.
Construction on the five most recent projects is expected to begin in early 2019 and finish in 2020.
County leaders say there are still other problems to address, such as better public transit, to ensure workers can commute to Pigeon Forge, Sevierville and Gatlinburg.