Home-building incentive working
By Steve Lord slord@stmedianetwork.com June 27, 2012 3:14PM
Updated: July 29, 2012 6:49AM
YORKVILLE — City officials knew they were taking a bit of a chance when they approved a program that would actually pay people to live here.
But it appears the first year of the BUILD program has been successful enough that the City Council will be asked to renew it for another year.
“Oh yeah, we do,” said Krysti Barksdale-Noble, Community Development director, when asked if city officials consider BUILD successful. “Hopefully it will get extended.”
The City Council capped the program at 30 lots for the first year, and 24 people already have signed contracts to build new houses in Yorkville because of it. That leaves only six lots left that could participate.
The unusual program actually pays a prospective resident $10,000 to buy a new house in Yorkville. The money comes from the city rebating a portion of the building permit fee, up to $5,000, with a matching $5,000 contribution from the builder.
The homeowner gets the money when the city issues the final certificate of occupancy.
Yorkville officials were hoping the program would encourage people to buy new homes in the city and stimulate building, which has practically been at a standstill in recent years.
Officials estimated that this year, Yorkville has about 9,500 undeveloped residential lots ready to be built on, including single-family, townhomes and duplexes. In 2011, the city issued 43 new single-family residential construction permits, compared to a peak of 821 such permits issued in 2006.
Officials were hoping a program like BUILD would stimulate the market for developers to begin building on some of those platted residential lots.
National builder Pulte has applied for the most lots, at 11. McCue Custom Homes has applied for 5, Tim Greyer, 3 and Scott Sleezer, 1. “It’s been both national and local builders,” Barksdale-Noble said.
