(Radio Iowa) – The Iowa Department of Transportation is delaying a pilot project that would help with the rural housing shortage in the state. The D-O-T’s Craig Markley says the plan would use money from a program that has traditionally been used to build roads to support businesses and business development. He says it would use a small portion of the Rebuild Iowa’s Sound Economy or RISE program for a pilot program to build the streets and roadways that would support rural housing.

The state Transportation Commission has discussed the program and was set to vote on it today (Tuesday), but they have been asked by the Iowa Department of Economic Development to do some more study on the proposal. Markley says the idea came out of the need to get more people into the state to fill jobs.

“We need more truck drivers, we need more office workers, we need more population. One of the ways to incentivize that would be rural housing,” Markley says. Markley is not sure when the proposal might come back to the Transportation Commission.