I have no idea what the folks on the city council are thinking in Andalusia, but all they have done judging by the comments is piss lots of folks off and I don't see how this endeavor helps much of anyone here myself. The biggest thing Andalusia/Cov. Co. needs is better employment, both in terms of more employers and ones who pay better wages. Lack of decent jobs is what is driving people away from the area. Lots of jobs around here are still only paying $10/hour.

Here is the link to the City of Andalusia FB page if anyone wants to go read the comments under this announcement they made this evening:

https://www.facebook.com/cityofandalusia

Developer plans 20 rental houses at Packer Field

The Andalusia City Council last week approved an agreement with The Cottages at Packer Field, LLC to build 20 two-bedroom and three-bedroom cottages on the property currently known as Packer Field, and bordered by Packer Avenue and Snowden Drive.

City administrator John Thompson said the project is the culmination of years of work.

“We know that we have lost population in recent Censuses, and we believe the reason has been the lack of housing,” Thompson said. “We know we’ve lost at least one economic development project because we didn’t have housing available for the people who would have needed to relocate here.”

Thompson introduced Frank Thomas of Montgomery, who will build the workforce houses through the Cottages at Packer Field, LLC, and Kathleen M. Ferrell, CPM, of Enterprise, who will manage the rental properties.

Ferrell said the houses will be leased at “market rate.” The two-bedroom homes are approximately 1,200 square feet and will rent for about $1,525. The three-bedroom homes are approximately 1,450 square feet and will rent for $1,795.

“Our criteria for renting are strict,” she said, adding that tenants must have been employed for six months, show proof of income of at least three times the rental amount, and provide landlord references.

The City of Andalusia has had a long-held agreement to use Packer Field for its recreation programs, but the City’s Capital Improvement Cooperative District actually acquired the property within the last two years.

The agreement approved recently calls for the Cooperative District to deed a portion of the property to the LLC for the initial construction. Once those houses are built and leased, a second phase is expected to follow. The City Council will rebate the non-education sales taxes collected on construction-related purchases made within the City.

Once an engineering study is completed, the City and developers will decide whether the first phase will front on Snowden Drive or Packer Avenue.

They are building those everywhere

Reckon the Feds will take them over and house democrats in the near future? Seems strange that city govt. is trying to break into the rental housing market???

“Our criteria for renting are strict,” she said, adding that tenants must have been employed for six months, show proof of income of at least three times the rental amount, and provide landlord references."
"will be leased at “market rate.” The two-bedroom homes are approximately 1,200 square feet and will rent for about $1,525. The three-bedroom homes are approximately 1,450 square feet and will rent for $1,795."

If the folks who are allowed to rent must be employed for 6 months and make around $55,000 which is $4,600/month, then $10 x 40 hrs=$400/wk x 4 wks=$1600/month. So according to my math they would need to be making no less than $29/hr to live in these houses. That is probably more money than most teachers are making!

I am not sure this will encourage many businesses to locate here??

Now maybe they are factoring in some type of Government income these folks qualify for??

They have been paid to convert that into illegal invader housing. When they find that no regular people will rent them, they will immediately turn them into government illegal invader checkbooks. Its how they do it in the Atlanta metro area.

That rent seems insane for the Andalusia area. Which leads me to believe what Skinny said... they will not be rented and then they will turn them into some gov subsidy housing. Crazy.

That is precisely how it is done. They build crappy complexes with Hispanic labor as cheap and fast as possible. Then they put an impossible sticker price on it. Nobody rents so they make a crawfish excuse to the public and bribe an official or two and then it becomes an illegal housing community overnight.
In Colorado and San Antonino where the gangs have taken complexes over. They took over immigrant housing complexes because they already knew the layout of the complexes from living there. They lived there for a few months to survey out the area and then they knew exactly how to take the complex over.

I don't buy the whole we don't have housing so we can't build our factory in your area. What you mean is we don't have low income housing for these cheap wages we about to pay. If I have a well paying job you can find housing:

I just went to Zillow and it looks to me Andalusia has plenty of housing, and that's just in town. You can travel 30min out for a well paying job because you will have good transportation.

I can buy one of these homes listed on Zillow for cheaper than $1795 per month. Citizens of Andalusia are getting the shaft by their elected officials.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/Andalusia,-AL_rb/

It also appears to largely be coming from Conecuh Sausage for Andalusia and that is not good.
I've sent Matt Gaetz several messages about this problem and I think somebody is checking into it. But these NW Florida border towns along our border are being exploited to bring illegals into NW Florida. The Dems want Florida more than any other state and lower Alabama/ NWFL is what is really in their way. They cannot out-vote our culture honestly and they know it. So they can fill NWFL with "Alabama imported illegals". They are doing the same in lower Georgia trying to take Jacksonville and Tallahassee.
Dothan is about to explode into the national spotlight because of it. An illegal can vote in three states, on the same day, if they know how to game the system from Dothan.

I am amazed these guys are getting away with this crap in Andalusia. For small Alabama town there is a lot of folks with a lot of money and I am surprised they have not put a stop to it. Gonna have to call my cuz and get the scoop.

I just check the City's page and it appears 90% of the elected officials are Republicans. Or is Andalusia ran by Democrats? BradB do you know?

There were plenty of comments about that happening. But then the city shut down the comments so no one else could post.

I sure as heck hope the mayor and everyone on the city council gets voted out next time. Some of the things that some folks complained about, like Candyland, I didn't see a problem with because that does bring a lot of people from outside Cov. Co. to it and they will spend money here on restaurants, maybe spending the night, etc. but doing things specifically to cater to this govt pushed immigrant relocation program I am not in favor of at all, especially when there are so few decent jobs and so little affordable housing here for the average person working the average job around here. There is a reason why there is such a high percentage of guys from around here who work offshore.

I did hear that the Conecuh Sausage plant that is being built here IS planning to build housing for the employees that will be moving here because they are shutting the plant in Evergreen down. When this was announced it made it sound like there would be about a 100 jobs available for people here, but that is apparently not the case at all. There may be 100 positions but they are bringing as many as are willing to come with them. I had assumed there would be some who would be willing to make the commute and with carpooling maybe most the current workforce they have and thought that this would be about 100 additional jobs, but nope.

Politically, there are very few who run on the democrat side, but that is likely because the chance of getting elected is low. I know there have been others who have run on the republican side in recent years who used to be on the democrat side and I suspect that their views didn't change but they knew they would not be elected running on the other side.

As with most things in life.......follow the money....

Most put an R by their name but they certainly don’t govern conservatively. The piece of crap mayor Earl Johnson was a lifelong democrap before he decided to get into politics. Funny how people fell for the bs

A Yellow Dog Democrat. That is probably what is happening in a lot of these small towns.

I only know of one person that has stood up to the nonsense, and I can promise you it has been costly.

No one is really running anymore on the Democratic ticket in rural Alabama. So all the white liberals, moderates, and conservatives are just dumped into the Republican party.