City of Schuyler looking at housing development, parks, drainage

Across Nebraska and much of the United States, housing has become a mainstay topic in many cities as people want to move and homes become less available.

To help abate this issue, Nebraska has made provisions over 50 years to allow cities options for development, assuming they follow certain rules. This was a topic of discussion at the Oct. 1 Schuyler City Council meeting as the city council approved a development plan.

"It's related to the TIF (Tax Increment Financing) project and one of the allowable uses of TIF is for the development of workforce housing. But the statute requires that first, as a community, you have to implement a workforce housing incentive plan," City Attorney Drew Graham said.

This plan, Graham said, is written to mirror state statute to fulfill that requirement. Usually, TIF is used in these cases to help with acquisition of the property, infrastructure work or other ancillary costs, he added, which reduces some of the burden on developers looking to build. In this case, that is K. (Kelby) Herman Development.

"They can focus on building the houses. The thought here in adopting the incentive plan is that it provides anyone, I think specifically in this situation, (Kelby) Herman the ability to have more allowable costs. So the amount of TIF that he can collect is still limited by whatever the increment that he develops is, and they estimate that on the front end, plus the interest," Graham said.

This also works with development of existing spaces, more specifically second-story residences in commercial districts, such as those above Schuyler's downtown businesses, with certain qualifications regarding assessed value of the residence and rehabilitated space.

"The infrastructure already exists. There's streets, there's infrastructure, so that cost is not their site preparation. If the building's going to remain, you don't have any site preparation costs, so it's providing, again, additional avenues for developers or anyone to utilize this, or attempt to utilize the current space rather than building structures," Graham said.

The city will issue a fund up to a certain dollar amount, which it is not obligated to satisfy except for what the TIF cost ends up being. The houses added in each year (or so) would be lumped together for the sake of TIF cost recoupment, Graham said. For instance, as one development goes up, its property taxes would go toward repaying that development, and the next adding on in the next year, etc.

In other news, a resolution was passed to advertise for bids for the Schuyler Downtown Park Community Development Bloc Grant (CDBG) project. Eric Casper of JEO Consulting spoke briefly about the plans, which at this point are very bare-bones, largely consisting of basic infrastructure items such as sinks, toilets and the concrete structure of the amphitheater. Additional amenities and decorations can be added later, Casper said, but this was meant to get a plan rolling for the essentials.

"We've got all the plans and specifications ready to go, we're just waiting. We sent everything to the grant administrators to do one final approval, they're just looking it over. Once they give us the go-ahead we can put it out for bids," Casper said.

They would give bid results about three weeks to come in, Casper said. JEO estimates the costs for an amphitheater and its electrical plans, the restrooms, pavement and turf to be around $640,000, though it certainly could be lower, Casper added.

A resolution was also passed approving the advertisement of bids for a drainage solution for 22nd Street. Andrew Wilshusen with JEO spoke to the cost of the project, approximately $130,000 for work with the streets to allow for more efficient drainage. The hope, Wilshusen said, is that things can be advertised quickly so the work can be complete by the end of the year.

The following also took place at the Oct. 1 meeting: