New London sets sights on housing development

BY KARYN SPORY

Mt. Pleasant News

NEW LONDON ? The New London City Council is holding off on developing a sub-division on South Pine Street, but may be looking to develop some homes on Adams Street.

On Tuesday night, one of the many agenda items was to discuss creating a TIF district in order to help develop housing on South Pine Street. However, Councilman Greg Malott said he was concerned with creating a TIF district because it could divert money away from taxes collected and used for the school district.

City Project engineer Matt Walker said this was true, but the state had a rollback plan. ?If ?x? amount of dollars was going to go to the school, but it went to the TIF, the state has a rollback to repay a portion of that,? he explained.

Councilman Kirk Miller stated the promising thing about a new development was the possibility to bring in more people, especially young families. Miller reminded Malott that schools also receive state dollars based on the number of pupils. If the city were to entice more families to move to the area, the school would receive more students and more funds.

But diverting money away from the school district wasn?t the only concern with a housing development. The question once again became, who would develop the area? The city has been talking about a creating a development on Pine Street for four years, Miller remarked. In that time, the city has tried to seek out contractors and private developers to create a sub-division to no avail. For Miller, he was in favor of getting a TIF loan and developing the area. ?I?ve got three people who want to build houses now,? he said. ?We need to either say no, we?re not going to do anything so look elsewhere, or yes we will do something. At some point we?re going to have to make a decision.?

Miller added the city would only need to sell eight houses to be able to make the yearly payment on the TIF loan.

?If a private developer doesn?t want to develop the area, why should the city,? inquired Malott.

Councilman Tom Davis said he felt this was too risky of leap. ?If you could guarantee eight houses,? said Davis. ?But there are a lot of things this town needs instead of that.?

Miller countered by saying there is nothing else that would bring more people and tax dollars into the city.

?It?s a catch 22, we?ve got money now that we could use instead of putting it over there as payment on the TIF loan. I think we need to get our priorities straight,? said Davis.

The councilmen were talking about $33,000 the city has that is not earmarked for anything. Miller had suggested this money could make the TIF loan payment for the first three years.

Walker said there might be a compromise with Adams Street. He said the city could extend sewer services from Pine to Adams Street and there is enough land for three homes.

Davis remained firm in his belief that, although the intentions of developing new land was noble, he just didn?t feel it was the right time. Malott, on the other hand, felt a smaller project like Adams Street was a good way for the city to get their feet wet and see if a bigger development project would ever take off in New London. ?If they take off and we sell three houses, then we can come in, put some pavement down, open up a few more lots and keep moving,? he said.

In the end, the council was unanimous in wanting to look into costs of extending utility services to Adams Street.