Housing director position discussed

Creston City Council met Tuesday and discussed the possibility of adding a housing director position, thanks in part to a number of benefactors.

Mindy Stalker, director of the Union County Development Association, spoke at the public forum in favor of the position.

“I’m here today to request that the council consider adding the housing director position as a city employee,” Stalker said. “As the job position states, the housing director would report directly to the city administrator and function as a liaison with other governmental agencies, public and private entities, lenders, developers, contractors, attorneys, architects and the public. UCDA would eagerly welcome this type of partnership opportunity.”

She explained the importance of such a position.

“In 2017, a housing needs assessment was conducted by JEO Consulting,” Stalker said. “In 2020, a citywide comprehensive plan was adopted by the city of Creston, including 26 goals and objectives to address the housing issues. In 2021, an expanded housing committee was formed to participate in a rural housing committee assessment. The results of these assessments are consistent. There is a shortage of nearly every type of appropriate housing in Creston. In the comprehensive plan that was adopted in 2020, housing is identified as one of the most important issues in Creston.”

Stalker shared what she thought should be the next step.

“I feel as though the city of Creston is making an effort to enforce existing ordinances in regards to housing, with a vast majority of this funding coming from generous benefactors,” Stalker said. “To me, the logical next step is to move forward and participate in this three year pilot project of hiring a housing director that can work for the city and work along-side invested community partners to maximize goals set aside by data from the housing needs assessment, the comprehensive plan, and the rural housing readiness assessment.”

UCDA housing committee member Paul Fuller also spoke in favor of the position.

“I’m here to ask you to favorably look at the housing director position,” Fuller said. “I know some of the discussion was, how do we decide after three years what continues after that? Well, I ask you to look at this as a project manager. A defining scope- three years. A defining start- as soon as you hire them. A defining finish- three years. That’s a project manager. I don’t feel that, if that person is successful and can continue after that three year point? Great.”

Fuller explained what such a position would bring to the city, including their goal of building 100 homes over the next three years.

“If each unit is valued at $200,000, you have a $20 million investment in the community,” Fuller said. “You might ask, well what are our taxes? Roughly, $445,000 a year. Of that, the city gets 32%, so your share is $146,000 a year. What’s this position going to cost? Through our discussion, I believe around $94,000 a year. $284,000 over three years. How do we pay for that? Well, there’s benefactors who have donated or committed to $207,000, so that puts your share at $76,000 over three years, $25,000 a year. For $146,000 return.”

The council later discussed the position themselves. Council member Steve Wintermute was in favor of the position.

“I’ve lived here for 40-some years, been in the business a lot of those,” Wintermute said. “Every discussion revolves around housing. It’s always been a thing. With the benefactors that are also interested in this, I don’t know how we can’t do it, the way they’ve stepped up.”

Council member Richard Madison had concerns regarding the position, specifically in who would hold influence over the position.

“I appreciate the benefactors as well, but I do have a concern,” Madison said. “Who will be in charge of this employee? That’s the way it should be, but with that much of a contribution, I’m afraid there will be other fingers in the pie and I don’t really want that.”

Council member Kiki Scarberry agreed with Wintermute.

“I agree with Steve,” Scarberry said. “I think you can’t deny that it comes up on every single report we get is we have a housing issue and we’ve got the opportunity to do something that we won’t see again. I don’t know how we… [can turn it down].”

Madison thought that the position should be under UCDA rather than the city, but Mayor Gabe Carroll explained why the benefactors didn’t want that.

“Most of the discussion centered around, if you want to have a quality candidate, we need to offer them benefits, and UCDA obviously does not have benefits they can provide for retirement or healthcare or that type of stuff,” Carroll said. “That’s why the city was kind of chosen as the entity that the benefactors would want to work with.”

Madison then proposed taking the $20,000 the city gives to UCDA annually and putting it into benefits for the housing director position. However, Carroll explained that taking the money away from UCDA could shut them down.

Council member Josh Thompson spoke against taking money from UCDA, citing a conversation he had with Austin Smith of Garden and Associates.

“The thing he pointed out was, a lot of times he’ll find something or UCDA will find something and then it dies with the city because there’s no one at the city to take care of it,” Thompson said. “I don’t know that I want to ever pull funding from UCDA, but I think there’s enough work and an individual to do the work.”

Council member Jocelyn Blazek spoke in favor of the position, specifying that it was a three-year deal.

“I’m in favor of the position,” Blazek said. “I agree with Steve, if they’re going to put that kind of money on the table, it’s kind of hard to… I have some concerns as to what to do long-term, but as Mr. Fuller said, it’s a three-year deal, and if we get a return on the investment, I think we need to focus on the fact that it’s a three-year deal at this point. We can focus on the long-term later down on the road.”

The city council only discussed the position, with no decision being made.