OCEAN CITY — While it’s no secret Ocean City has an affordable seasonal workforce housing shortage, talks are underway between a developer and the city to address the issue.
During Monday’s Tourism Commission meeting, members reviewed a presentation from Holtz Builders of Wisconsin for potentially one or more dormitory-style seasonal workforce housing projects in or around the resort. Holtz Builders has had success in developing seasonal workforce housing in other resort areas. The company has expressed an interest in developing such a project in Ocean City to help with the resort’s critical seasonal employee shortage and affordable housing needs. Throughout the summer, there has been an acute seasonal labor shortage in the hospitality industry, forcing many businesses to close for a day or two or cut back hours of operation.
Greater Ocean City Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lachelle Scarlato said she has been working with Holtz Builders President Dan Bullock to identify potential sites and begin the process of laying the groundwork for a project.
“There are ongoing initiatives and other efforts,” she said. “I’ve been engaged with our business owners and the common denominator I’m hearing is the need for more employees and more workforce housing. There is a need to tie the housing to the workforce.”
Tourism and Business Development Director Tom Perlozzo said building one or more seasonal workforce housing projects would come with a steep price tag, but said it was time to move to the next step in the process. He said Holtz Builders is not looking for an investment from the town in the proposed project or projects.
They had better build them like jails or it will be trashed in a season.
Holtz is huge in the biz…so $$$$ may not be an issue building on the island. NIMBY’s will be the word of the day throughtout this discussion. Yet a better locale would be West O so City Hall (even though they dont want city money involved) is not involved at all (DPW, taxes, etc). West O or other outside areas would then spike transportation concerns.
Lather rinse repeat, something folks will talk about all offseason.
The visa worker program should be shut down period. For too many years, an economy was built depending on the cost model of low wage foreign workers. Just how many of these workers have family who own property in Ocean City and could provide lodging for an American worker? NONE!