As a chief planner for Orange County, Carter Gresham ’23 MURP is committed to making affordable housing more accessible for a rapidly growing population.
Carter Gresham, wearing graduation regalia, smiles in front of a backdrop of buildings and palm trees.

Carter Gresham works to streamline the housing process for Orange County residents.

Securing affordable housing can be a long and challenging process involving many detailed steps. This is something Carter Gresham ’23 MURP hopes to change.

Gresham, a chief planner for Orange County Government, helps lead Ready Set Orange, a program initiated in August 2024 as part of the Housing for All Task Force launched in 2019 by Mayor Jerry L. Demings. The task force works to create more affordable housing for the county’s growing population, and Ready Set Orange streamlines the path to homeownership by providing pre-designed floorplans in accordance with attainable housing models.

Ready Set Orange aims to increase the variety of housing in Orange County — particularly in the form of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and small single-family homes. Gresham says there has been widespread interest in these options but insufficient knowledge of how to get started with planning and construction.

As a graduate of the College of Community Innovation and Education’s master of urban and regional planning degree program in the School of Public Administration, Gresham says the program helped enhance his knowledge in urban design policy and helps inform his work on Ready Set Orange.

“The permitting process for ADUs and smaller homes can be really confusing and take a long time,” Gresham says. “Ready Set Orange gives smaller developers and homeowners the tools they need to hit the ground running.”

Gresham says the program’s pre-designed floorplan process is faster, easier and less expensive than hiring an architect independently.

“If you wanted to hire an architect on your own, you could be going back and forth for a year making a ton of design changes,” Gresham says. “Ready Set Orange hires the architects so you don’t have to get into the minutiae of designing an ADU or a small home. Our architects create the floorplans, you choose the one you like, you fill out an intake form, and then we send you the plans after a quick review.”

Not only do ADUs and smaller homes help neighborhoods absorb greater population density, they also can come with governmental incentives. For instance, Gresham says homeowners who build ADUs or single-family rental homes (SFRs) and meet the County's certification standards for affordable housing may be entitled to grant funding to waive some permit fees.

Although Ready Set Orange is early in its implementation, Gresham says residents are highly engaged.

“The momentum has been incredible,” Gresham says. “As of last month, we’re up to almost 200 intake forms, and we’re doing our reviews and getting those floorplans out.”

Ready Set Orange is currently active in unincorporated Orange County, but Gresham says the program could very likely spread to other areas in the future.

“There are ongoing conversations to see how this could grow,” Gresham says. “We’ve already had tremendous interest from some of the municipalities within Orange County and even from people in other counties. We’re exploring all options.”

As Ready Set Orange gains traction, Gresham is committed to refining and improving the program over time.

“We want this program to be as successful as possible,” Gresham says. “That means being responsive to the community and approaching problems in new and fresh ways every day. Our mission is to build an environment everyone here can enjoy — a place people are proud to call home.”