Lea County and two cities in New Mexico's oil country want to attract more housing developers to help with the area's expected housing shortage.
The Hobbs News-Sun reports that Hobbs, Lovington and country officials are wrestling with different ideas on incentives for housing developers.
The incentive program for Hobbs, for example, reimburses developers for building market rate, multi-family and single-family housing projects
University of New Mexico researchers project the Lea County population at 75,855 by 2020, with a need for 1,500-2,000 more housing units.
They estimated 300-400 more homes in Lea County would be needed each year through 2020.
In August, the Hobbs City Commission entertained a proposal to cut the incentive program in half, but tabled the proposal pending further review.
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