Audubon County Supervisor
As an Audubon County Supervisor and member of the ACED Board, I would like to respond as much as I can to the letter from Tim Wahlert printed in the 5/19/23 edition of the Advocate Journal. I have not been as much involved as some others on the ACED board, but I have been involved in the proposed housing development from the very beginning. So let’s start there.
In his opening volley, Wahlert contends that the development is “low income”, has been in planning for 2 years, and has basically been kept a secret. I’ll start with the two-year part. False. The first that I or anyone at ACED knew anything about it was about the first of March last year. We received an email from ACED Director Sara Slater on 3/2/22 saying she had had a call from a developer who wanted to build a “large senior housing project” in Audubon. She asked if any of us would be able to meet with him on short notice. Our actual meeting with Jim Bergman and Andrew Johnson of Pioneer Developments did not take place until 3/24/22… so about 14 months ago. I was there along with Sara and two other board members. Jim had already spoken with at least two landowners about the prospect of purchasing land for the development. At that time, the proposal was for a split development, part of it east of the Rec Center and the other part near the hospital. Over the next several months, those plans morphed as required by the availability of buildable land. As with any such deal with a developer, the details of the plan are usually kept somewhat quiet in the early stages of planning. Land had to be found and secured, and more importantly the project would not and could not fly without winning federal tax credits awarded by the Iowa Finance Authority. Hence, any news of the project was not divulged to the general public until after the tax credits were awarded on September 1. Of nearly 40 who applied, Audubon was one of only 11 communities in the state to win the tax credits for a housing development, and the smallest community EVER to win them. After 35 years of tearing down houses faster than we built them, I would contend that this win could mark a monumental turning point in Audubon history.
So, what did we win? Wahlert contends we won “low income” housing. From the time of the meeting with Mr. Bergman on March 24, 2022 until sometime in September when the Advocate Journal reported on the story, I don’t believe the development was ever referred to by anyone who knew about it as “low income”. At our ACED meetings, it was “workforce housing” and it was “senior housing” but it was never described as “low income”. The trouble, I gather, is that the federal tax credits themselves carry the term “low income” as part of the name and that phraseology made it to print in the newspaper. As those familiar with the federal tax credits will attest, this is somewhat of a misnomer and conjures up a notion that these are federal Section 8 Housing developments, when in fact the differences are like night and day. There is an income means test to get into 31 of these units while 4 will have no means test. But once you are in, you are in regardless of what your income does after that. In this way, the housing units often are the first housing for teachers and professionals straight out of college or trade schools. The units are versatile enough in design to provide housing for either young families or seniors. The units are all non-smoking and you must pass a background check to become a tenant, just for starters.
Wahlert asks where the tenants will come from. Huh? The 2019 Housing Needs Assessment shows definitively that the town and in fact the entire county needs housing… badly. In my own work as Supervisor and as part of data gathering for our recent S&P bond rating process, I noted that all of the top ten employers in the county had grown since the last rating except one, that being the Friendship Home. Two additional employers were added to the list to make it a top 12 list without dropping any employer off the list. Of those top 12, there were two employers who would not have made the list at all in 2010 but now between them employ 200. Among the other ten employers, about 100 jobs have been gained. Manufacturing is back. Schools are growing. A new feed mill to employ 20 more is being built. Audubon has jobs… a LOT of jobs. They don’t all pay $100k, but we have jobs. What we don’t have is places for new employees to live, and many commute in from out of town and out of county. The 2019 Housing Needs Assessment shows that just to house a 1% annual increase in population along with replacement of older homes, Audubon would need to build 16 new homes per year.
Wahlert mentions the need to build houses that are for sale. This is absolutely true and something that ACED has been trying to do for years. It is hard. For 100 years the town of Audubon built, on average, about 11 houses per year. In the last 35 years we’ve averaged only about 2. The long-term effect of this distinct period of non-building is that we lack quality, modern, move-in-ready homes on the market and have an abundance of old and very-old homes. Over 41 percent of the houses in Audubon are more than 80 years old, and over 89 percent are more than 40 years old. There is a good market for newer housing if you can keep the cost down to a price point where the masses can afford it. There is a market for buildable lots, but the high cost of construction keeps even those (what few we have) from being developed rapidly. The lack of available land to build on is a major impediment. Good things are happening and progress is being made, but it sometimes seems agonizingly slow.
Among Wahlert’s other concerns was that the complex would not pay hardly any property tax relative to the cost of construction. This is actually true, as it would be taxed according to a metric relative to rental income. The flip side of that argument is that unlike almost any other housing development that might be presented, the city will not be paying for street paving or water and sewer lines within the development and there is no three-year tax abatement. Additionally, the units will pay full price for water and sewer. I should also point out that as of the date of the 2019 Housing Needs Assessment for the City of Audubon, 18% of the houses within Audubon city limits had an assessed value of less than $25,000, and over 51% were assessed at less than $50,000. Those 500 houses don’t generate as much in property taxes as new houses either.
With regard to the sewer and water systems, it seems odd to me that the city of Audubon, having shrunk in population by about 30% since I started high school, after having maintained that population through the 50s, 60s and 70s, is suddenly (according to Wahlert) unable to contemplate even a 3% increase in population because the sewage plant won’t handle the load.
I think we all want the town to grow a little if only because we all would like to have more offerings in Audubon on a year-to-year basis and not forever less. I think we would all like to have a pizza place again and a Bomgaars. We want to keep a grocery store. The way to having and keeping those things is for the town to grow a little… and the potential is huge if we can find ways to improve housing. We may have different visions of what those solutions should look like, but at the end of the day, remember that we are all on the same team.
This housing project is not the cure. It is probably not even a fifth of the cure. It is one project in one year, partially filling a need in one market segment (rental units). To keep the town growing we need move-in-ready homes and buildable lots. To the extent that retirees downsize and move to these rentals, there will be progress in the move-in-ready segment as well, but we need more. You can be assured that those of us who serve on the ACED board as volunteers and our paid staff are working diligently to move beyond this project and on to others, always working to keep all of Audubon County growing.
