Charles City will seek housing development partners at state conference

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A group of Charles City Housing Task Force members and city officials will spend several days in Cedar Rapids next week, meeting with housing developers, construction companies, financial firms and other city, county and state organization representatives.

The goal is to find a company or companies that can help Charles City with a housing development project, or at least start the process of finding those companies.

More than 800 people are signed up for the Housing Iowa Conference to be held Tuesday through Friday at the Cedar Rapids Doubletree Convention Complex, including representatives of more than 30 Iowa cities. In total, more than 400 organizations will be there.

As was reported previously, Charles City has been selected as an Iowa Thriving Community by the Iowa Financial Authority and the Iowa Economic Development Authority. That means the city has been identified through a competitive process as using innovative methods to attract housing opportunities for the community’s workforce, and will be able to offer housing tax credits to entice developers to build in the city.

“This is a real big win for Charles City,” said Ron Litterer, president of the Charles City Area Development Corp. (CCADC), at the group’s monthly meeting Wednesday morning.

Charles City Administrator Steve Diers gave an update on the Charles City Housing Task Force at the meeting.

“We’ve been awarded housing tax credits,” said Diers. “We applied for the workforce housing tax credits and they granted us those, and they also granted us low income tax credits. … There were 11 communities that were awarded tax credits, and of those 11, three were awarded both low income and market rate workforce, and we got them both.”

What that means, Diers said, is that when they find a developer who wants to do a project, that developer would get preference when it applies for housing tax credits – up to $1 million in credits for the workforce tax credits, or at least $1 million – potentially more – on the low income tax credits, depending on the project.

Tuesday night the Housing Iowa Conference will start with a mixer with the 11 communities and a number of developers, Diers said.

“That’s our first time to get in and meet some of the potential developers that might be interested. Then Wednesday morning we have a short presentation. Of 11 communities we each have 11 minutes to give a synopsis pitch for our community,” Diers said.

“We hope to score some relationships and see if we can’t get somebody interested” in the apartment complex project in the Southwest Development Park that was proposed in the Thriving Community application and presentation, Diers said.

They are still working on ideas to use the low income tax credits, and are thinking about ways to use the Cedar Health property, he said. The former nursing home care center at 807 5th St. closed in 2017.

“That would be fantastic if we could find a way to maybe utilize some brownfield, low income tax credits to wipe that slate clean, put up some affordable housing there maybe,” Diers said. “That’s one of the ideas that’s out there.”

The people going to the Housing Iowa Conference next week are Diers, Mayor and Housing Task Force Co-chair Dean Andrews, Charles City Housing Director Katie Nolte, CCADC Executive Director Tim Fox, Housing Tax Force Co-chair and CCADC Board member Emily Garden and Ginger Williams, the Charles City Area Chamber of Commerce tourism and marketing director.

“We need to meet and greet and talk with developers to see who might be interested and what they might do, what they may be interested in,” Diers said. “Maybe their preferences are different from ours, but we’ve got that million bucks that we can hang out there.”

The CCADC donated the land for a housing project in the Southwest Development Park, and Litterer said he thought that donation was instrumental in getting the Thriving Community designation.

“Oh, absolutely,” Diers said. “I don’t know what else you can do when you say, ‘Here’s free land, here’s free street, free infrastructure and a 10-year tax abatement. Build something, please.’”

“And tax credits,” Andrews said.

“And tax credits,” Diers agreed. “If that doesn’t do it. …”

“Hopefully this is the first step of other things to happen out there,” he said. There is room for additional apartment buildings at that development park site, and also space for single family homes. The Floyd County Medical Center also owns land in that area and is interested in housing projects.

Diers said the city utilities infrastructure is in place, and OmniTel has already committed to putting in fiber optic service in that area.

Diers said he announced on the city’s social media that Charles City had received the Thriving Community designation, and he’s already getting likes and contacts.

“There’s all sorts of opportunities that could come from that,” Diers said. “It’s getting a lot of buzz.”