Right call on housing incentives

By The Gazette Editorial Board

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There's been a fair amount of debate over the wisdom of the city's efforts to encourage new housing in Cedar Rapids' older, core neighborhoods. But it's tough to argue with the numbers reported in The Gazette a week ago.

In the Oak Hill neightborhood, where incentives provided a boost for the construction of 40 new homes, the results have been positive. New life has been injected into a part of town that needed a shot in the arm after years of being overlooked by developers. That new construction has changed the face of the area, prompting the owners of many older homes to spruce things up. And, according to city figures, property values are rising at a rate outpacing much of the city. Among 100 older homes in the heart of Oak Hill, property values jumped 10 percent.

So it's no surprise that the city is trying to duplicate Oak Hill's success in other areas, including portions of flood-hit neighborhoods outside the 100-year flood plain. Twenty-three builders are set to construct 201 new homes.

We think the city has set the right course. We also think officials have, so far, found the right balance in providing enough incentives needed to jolt neighborhoods to life without damaging the local real estate market.

Without such incentives, it's doubtful private investors would have been willing to make a bet on these neighborhoods. It's more likely they'd want to build on the outskirts, where so much housing growth is already happening.

But Cedar Rapids can't afford to let its older neighborhoods falter, for myriad reasons - from lost property taxes to the possibility of rising crime and the threat of malignant decline that spreads to adjoining neighborhoods. We think the city made a crucial, correct call when it decided to steer its housing incentives program toward infill only.

And so far, we don't believe government-backed development has unduly skewed the local housing market. The city is following the advice of its real estate consultant, Maxfield Research, in confining its incentives to core areas. The consultant noted that providing incentives to new developments outside the core neighborhoods makes it tougher for sellers of existing homes. But the value of the infill developments to the health of the community is a proper priority.

And that value, as demonstrated in Oak Hill, is in the potential for revitalized core neighborhoods that could provide a spark for economic development, bolster declining urban school enrollments and raise property values. The dark days of demolition after the flood are now yielding to construction and renewal.

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