The City of Williamsport has not had a housing-needs study done for about a decade and a city planner believes it’s time for one as a younger population is heading to Billtown to live.

“Our population is declining, but it is not declining as fast as some of the more rural parts of the county,” said Scott Williams, city planner and assistant director of the city Department of Community and Economic Development.

The city website lists a population of just under 30,000 with changes expected as more houses and rental properties are built.

However, there is an anomaly occurring — one in which a housing-needs study would come in handy as a guide to provide city officials with data on where to invest federal, state and city funds on housing, and help developers and realtors when they make decisions on what to buy, repair, rent or build.

“We’re getting a significant younger population in the city,” Williams said.

“I am excited hearing you say that,” Councilwoman Liz Miele, chair of the city finance committee, said.

As for the study, the city could seek some state Department of Community and Economic Development funding, Williams said.

It would be a citywide housing-needs study, he added.

“We can make assumptions about what the needs are,” he noted. But, he said he believes there are “missing pieces as far as city housing stock.”

Before any major dollars are put into housing programs, Williams said he sees value in trying to look at what the city is missing and that is what would be provided in a housing-needs study.

Miele observed how the last time the city did one was 10 years ago with assistance by Delta Development Group, the city consulting firm that assists with state government grants and other funding resources and project development.

That study demonstrated the city needed more high-end rental properties, according to Miele, who acknowledged that a decade was probably a long time in between studies.

“There have been major changes in the last 10 years,” Williams said.

The city’s demographics has changed, as has its population, which is dropping but, as stated, the city is gaining through more younger individuals and families living here.

As such, Williams said he believed that one of those missing pieces alluded to is a mid-range housing stock need.

He explained how the city has a lot of higher-end homes in residential areas, which are fine for someone who is more established in a career or affluent, but there is a lack of a middle step or middle ground for those who may have just started out in a career, want to start to raise a family and may want a place that is somewhat bigger, with a few more rooms, with, maybe, a nursery room space.

“You are kind of missing that,” he said, of a certain housing stock.

“It is why I want to do a housing-needs study,” he said.

“If we keep putting money into housing developments of a certain kind we want to make sure we don’t oversaturate ourselves with that kind of housing,” Williams said. “We want to make sure in every neighborhood in the city we have all the options – no matter income or family size – where they can find the type of housing that they are looking for.”

The study would provide data for city officials and developers.

“We could bolster our younger population by diversifying what some of that housing looks like,” Miele said.

Miele added how she would love to see investment in housing, as it has been, in and around the neighborhood surrounding the Pajama Factory, 1307 Park Ave., the eight-building complex on the National Register of Historic Places that has become home to about 150 tenants, many of them artists, small businesses and nonprofits.

The neighborhood is right by a park and that should be seeing – as it has with the Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement fund – heavy development for younger families, Miele said.

“If we could build on that I think it would be a positive thing for the city,” she said.