Burke County commissioners are expected to decide this month whether to adjust house lot sizes to address housing shortages in the county.
Alan Glines, director of community development for the county, said the county faces a shortage of 5,000 housing units, leaving a need for starter homes and senior housing.
Shrinking lot size requirements for new homes could make Burke County more attractive for builders, he said.
Current lot size requirements range from over an acre to a little less than three-quarters of an acre. Proposed changes would allow for quarter-acre lots for homes if public water and sewer are available. If only water is available to the site, the proposed lot size required would be 0.4 acres. If only sewer is available, the lot size would be 0.3 acres and if no public utilities are available, the lot size required would be a half-acre, according to information from the county.
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Reducing the required lot size where public water and sewer is available could save developers significant space and costs, Glines said.
鈥淚f you have a lot in the county, and you're going to need to get your own or produce your own space for your own well and your own septic system, we need to have enough room for that to account for those two utilities,鈥 Glines said. 鈥淚f you have public utilities available, we're kind of taking down the lot size to account for that availability.鈥
Glines said sewer systems outside of areas served by municipal systems is rare. He said sewer available in the county is mostly in the eastern end.
By lowering the lot sizes, it would give developers options in eastern Burke County to encourage housing developments, Glines said.
The Burke County Board of Commissioners heard about the proposed change during a budget retreat in early March.
Glines said at the retreat that there are a lot of large pieces of land near the county sewer lines in the eastern area of Burke that could be developed. Smaller lots sizes would allow for more homes.
鈥淪o I've reviewed this with our environmental health folks, and they feel like, for the most part, a half-acre lot is large enough to place both a well and your septic system, in most cases, in Burke County,鈥 Glines said. 鈥淭hey have to look at each piece of land specifically to make sure everything's going to work. But that's kind of a rule of thumb that we can work with. And then you can go smaller if you have public water or public water and sewer.鈥
Glines said the county has received inquiries from developers, and sometimes produce a plan for a development. If the developer drops out, they're doing so often because of the cost of infrastructure, he said.
鈥淩oad work, running water lines or connecting to the sewer, it can be costly,鈥 Glines said. 鈥淪o sometimes they're just dropping out. So we'd like to try to balance out the equation for them, to make it feasible to develop by allowing them to get a little more density so they can share the cost of the infrastructure on the number of lots they're able to produce or develop.鈥
While there is a lack of housing in Burke County, Glines said this year has improved compared to the same time last year.
According to Canopy Multiple Listing Services, housing inventory in Burke County increased 31.3% to 210 homes in March, with the months' supply of inventory rising 24% to 3.1 months available real estate. The average list price jumped 22.5% to $399,932, Canopy MLS said.聽
Other changes to the zoning ordinance to be considered are consolidating requirements for special uses and clarifying development and design standards.
At the May 19 regular meeting, Burke County Manager Brian Epley is expected to present the proposed 2025-26 budget to commissioners.
