Huntsville’s Population Boom Leads to Housing Demand City Can’t Yet Meet | News

Huntsville is the largest city in Alabama. It is also the most dynamic city in the state.

“I just came back, it’s grown so much!” said Allison Killian.

Killian visits Rocket City after moving to Nashville last year. She noticed big changes in the city.

“I was like, ‘Oh, my God! What’s all this?'” Killian said.

The last Huntsville Development Review showed the city approved more building permits in 2021 than in previous years. These are permits for new businesses, restaurants, renovations and homes.

“The whole city is showing the prosperity of growth,” Mayor Tommy Battle said.

City planners said more and more people are moving to the area, thanks to big companies like Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, Facebook and Google coming to Rocket City. This is sending the housing market skyrocketing, but there is a major problem.

“There simply isn’t enough housing being built on the land right now to meet current and future demand,” said Dennis Madsden, director of urban and long-range planning.

Available homes are selling at record speed. The development review showed that houses generally remained on the market for an average of 15 days before being sold, but in some areas the average was as low as two days.

“It’s definitely a seller’s market right now,” Madsen said.

City planners said they were doing what they could to approve new projects and bring more housing options to the area. They ask everyone to be patient, because it still takes time to materialize the projects.

“It would be nice if we could wave a magic wand and pop these housing clusters, but I think we’re doing a pretty good job of keeping up,” Madsden said. “While the demand will remain high, I think the development community is doing a good job, really stepping up and meeting that demand.”

Battle said this growth also presents other challenges.

“The biggest issue is that we have to keep building our infrastructure with our people,” Battle explained. “We need to grow our parts. We need to make Huntsville a place you want to come and be a part of. Be your community, it’s our community.”

City planners said it would take years for the housing market to start meeting demand. They expect the number of developments to continue to grow this year and in the future.