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Housing & Community Development Activities
The Commission is very much concerned about
long term housing and community development needs of each local
unit of government across the county.
The population of the county depends on both of these
areas. The creation
of, as well as the preservation of, housing is essential to the
long range stabilization of our area.
The Commission met with representatives of
the City of Harris’ Housing Development Authority upon their
request concerning their receipt of notices from the U.S. Rural
Development Agency ( formally FmHA) declaring the need for the
City to purchase the Rural Development units that are located in
Harris or to change the renter type and make additional
improvements to the units. The
Authority and the City of Harris both indicated that they felt
that purchase of the units and operated by themselves was the best
option available to them. The
Commission recommended that the staff of the NWIPDC attend with
them and provide various options for the Authority to consider.
The NWIPDC attempted to find several private lending sources for
the Authority to consider using in an attempt to finance the loan
necessary to purchase the units from Rural Development. This was
done, unfortunately with little success.
The issue remains pending.
The Commission was asked by the Sibley’s
City Council to present a housing development presentation in the
hopes of considering activities to deal with their communities
future needs. Kirk
provided a development proposal for which the City in general
indicated a “proceed” to research and inquire more about the
proposal’s suggestions. The
proposal focus centered on the fact that the City of Sibley,
despite all of its success in landing manufacturing companies to
the area, has been loosing approximately twenty three people a
year over the last thirty years.
The City has recently completed successfully, a upper end
housing project located around a portion of its golf course and
therefore does not believe that an additional upper end housing
project is what they need. Kirk
indicated that, through his study of the housing information and
labor study of the area, the City was missing possible
opportunities for existing workers that live elsewhere but work in
Sibley to be convinced to locate and build a new home here in
Sibley. This would be
accomplished by the establishment of an affordable housing project
which would provide incentives and advanced technology connections
and services for new homeowners.
The incentives would couple the financing
available from local lenders and would work towards making the
homes more affordable to working class families.
The research necessary for this project is currently taking
place and t it is expected that the City of Sibley will revisit
the topic in the near future.
The City of Sibley and the Commission is
currently working on finding resources to provide assistance for
the construction of an apartment complex.
In addition, the City of Sibley has recently completed its
housing needs assessment for the City was helped by the staff of
the NWIPDC and grant assistance from IDED.
This information will be used to verify housing assistance
needed in the City of Sibley and be used to seek funding resources
for identified projects.
Kirk worked with the City on a potential
housing development entitled the “Westview Addition Affordable
Housing project” with a local developer.
This project is pending.
International Paper approached the City and
indicated that they were contemplating an expansion to their
existing storage capacity at their facility by adding a 40,000
square foot addition. They
stated that, at a minimum, there would be 40 new jobs added as a
result of this expansion. The company wanted the City of Sibley to construct this
facility and then lease it back to them.
The City of Sibley could not afford to do this, but did, as
a result, offer to go forward with the planning and intent to
erect a 26 unit housing apartment complex with affordable rents.
This project was resolved by International Paper building
their own warehouse with the City’s apartment complex stalled as
a result of the lack of available /affordable land.
The OCEDC was asked to be involved in these negotiations
and discussions.
With knowledge that the City of Sibley’s
Day Care facility was
over crowded and currently inadequate in meeting area needs, Kirk
and the Mayor of Sibley decided to establish a new leadership
group to work towards addressing these problems.
This group has been formed and has held several meetings.
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