The Salem City Council Monday night approved a $15,750 housing study by Tracy Cross and Associates, Inc.
Economic Development Director Lea Dellicarprini hopes the study will help provide information to get new homes built in the city.
“This landscape of what do we need? What type, how many, are they apartments or single family homes and what price range? They will also be able to tell us based on population data will be able to tell us how much of a house, apartment or monthly rent people can afford based on the type of jobs we have available in town.”
Dellicarprini says the information is important to allow developers to get financing.
“What we’ve heard from our strategic planning team that included a lot of members from the community including some in the financial sector is that this is a tool that is needed. Its needed to have conversations with developers and those financial institutions.”
Dellicarprini hopes the study will be completed by the end of next April.
Mayor Nic Farley feels the city had to take some action to have an adequate housing supply.
The council tabled a request from Chris Ice to waive a $7,304 lien on property at 335 West Porter Street that covered the city’s cost of tearing down an old home on the property. Ice is interested in buying the lot to build a new home, but says the lien plus the cost of the land is too much. While the council did not appear interested in waiving the entire lien, they agreed to sit down with Ice to see if they could reach a compromise. Ice told the council he would be interested in following the city’s future demolitions of substandard homes to build new homes at some of the locations.
The council approved a 50-percent matching grant for Stanford Enterprises, LLC and Josh Dice to pay half the cost of facade improvements for a downtown business building at 113 East Main.
The council also gave second reading approval to requiring ten day prior notice for a special event liquor license to assure city staff has time to prepare the license.
