How St. Cloud Plans To Close Its Single-family Housing Gap
ST. CLOUD (WJON News) -- The St. Cloud City Council has approved a pilot program that the city hopes will help create more new single-family homes in the community.
The Single-Family Housing Supply Initiative and Development Fee Deferral Program defers eligible fees, such as SAC and WAC, until the homes are sold. The city will still recoup those fees with an established interest rate of 3.5 percent.
City Administrator Tracy Hodel says St. Cloud has been averaging over 100 building permits a year for single-family homes, with 49 building permits so far this year.
The problem, and one of the major reasons why we are bringing this proposal forward for council consideration, is that our current single-family lot inventory is at only 237. So, at the rate that we are issuing single-family building permits, we're going to run out of buildable lots if we don't do something.
A recent housing study suggests that between 2023 and 2030, St. Cloud needs to build 609 new single-family homes. We have 219 to go to hit that goal.
Central Minnesota Builders Association spokesman Steve Gottwalt spoke in favor of the program.
My testimony in this is that I think it is a good start. It's not a silver bullet. I really hope that it does spur the kind of platting that we hope happens, so we have more supply in the city of St. Cloud.
The program will be in effect until December 31st, 2027. City Council President Mike Conway called the initiative "revolutionary".
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