LIVE OAK, Fla. — Already open for business, Suwannee County wants to be open for building as well.

At Tuesday night’s meeting, the Suwannee County Board of County Commissioners agreed to let County Administrator Randy Harris pursue and promote possible ways to develop more affordable housing within the county.

Harris and Jimmy Prevatt, the county’s attorney, said the county has a definite need for more available housing, which has been identified in several economic development studies performed for the county.

Chairman Ricky Gamble even said the county doesn’t have adequate housing for the workforce that currently exists, much less the workforce needed as more businesses are hopefully lured to the area.

One of the slogans the county uses in economic development is “Open for business.”

Harris said he’d like to now open another door.

“The opportunities are there and if we can the message out that we’re opening the door to those opportunities,” Harris said. “The door exists. We’re just not doing some of the things that maybe we could do.”

Gamble agreed. He said he didn’t know exactly what the county could do to spur further development, but that it’s clear when looking at rental properties that a need is there.

He added that as the county continues to try and spur economic development and business growth, he wanted to make sure it didn’t lag behind in having enough houses available to put those additional workers in.

“I’m talking about completely moving out any roadblocks that the county has and marketing that we’re here,” he said.

Prevatt said while residential development doesn’t qualify under economic development, the county could look at the situation creatively and the lack of housing and the need for a program to address it could qualify as public purpose.

Gamble asked if it was something that the board could possibly use an incentive program similar to the system in place for economic development. Commissioner Larry Sessions was in favor of a points system like the economic development plan uses, especially with so many factors involved in constructing a house.

Alvin Jackson, the county’s economic development director, shared a plan used in Lake County to to help promote housing development. It was multi-pronged approach that included the banks, developers, surveyors and appraisers as well as the county and cities donating vacant land in order to help more people be able to afford their own homes.

County resident Bo Hancock and Commissioner Ronnie Richardson, though, had concerns. Both stressed the need to be cautious with implementing programs. Hancock mainly was concerned with using taxpayer money for any kind of incentive program.

Richardson wanted more research and to involve the Suwannee County School District in any attempts to further growth since it could cause a strain on them as well.

Harris, though, said more research was not necessary.

“We know we have a flat tire, we don’t have to study that,” he said, earlier stating that the county needs to let other developers and contractors know it was interested in volume building that would lower costs.

“In my mind, it is imperative. We’ve done the same thing for the last seven to eight years and we’ve gotten the same results. If we’re satisfied with these results, we don’t need to do anything. We’ve already figured out how to do what we’re doing and get these results, which is nothing.”

The board agreed.