BLACKSBURG, Va. – Assistant to Blacksburg’s town manager, Matt Hanratty, admits both the town and the surrounding area have housing issues. In order to find the best solutions, officials say they want to hear from the people who are impacted.
They are asking people who live in Blacksburg or want to live there to fill out this survey. It should take about 10 to 15 minutes, but your input can determine housing development in Blacksburg for the years to come.
The focus is on different housing types you would like to see built like single-family or multi-family styles, duplexes, townhomes and more. Another part of the survey looks at density, meaning how many buildings per acre.
Hanratty said the goal isn’t just more housing, but affordability for more people.
“As the university grows, the town grows. Even outside the university, the town is growing and it’s the employment center of the NRV. A lot of people want to be here. We can’t house everybody in the town, but we can do our fair share, so that means as new developments come online, potential redevelopments it could just be a little bit denser. So you could potentially be closer to your neighbors, different housing types to enable people to live here but also to afford to live here,” said Hanratty.
This is the second of three surveys. The first survey was about narrowing down the community’s priorities. Those results helped form the second survey.
When more people provide feedback, the town has a more accurate idea of what people need, want and how to get there.
“That helps us to inform us to make better strategies when we come out with a final survey for proposed strategies that will ultimately go to our town council that we kind of have a pulse of what the citizens are looking for and their input is very important to us,” said Hanratty.
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