City Council expected to approve a plan out on Council Street for 157 new homes; the move raises this question: how many more housing subsidies need to be handed out?

The City Council approved a zoning change Wednesday evening so builder/developer Jim Sattler can build single-family homes on what now is 68.5 acres of agricultural land along Council Street north of the proposed Tower Terrace Road extension.

Sattler plans to build 157 single-family homes on the site and about 30 condominiums on the southern piece of the property.

Sattler's 200 or so single-family residences easily will help City Hall surpass its stated goal to see that 323 new single-family homes are built in the community to replace housing lost in the June 2008 flood.

In July, the state's Rebuild Iowa Office announced that it had steered generous down-payment assistance to homebuyers that would enable builders to construct 177 single-family residences. None of Sattler's proposed homes are in that group of 177.

In addition, Skogman Homes has built another 20 homes in the Oakhill Jackson Neighborhood, and Habitat for Humanity has built another 20 scattered in existing housing developments.

In total – with Sattler, the Rebuild Iowa Office, Skogman and Habitat for Humanity -- that is more than 400 housing starts, more than half of which have received housing subsidies of some kind.

Even so, just two weeks ago, the City Council also approved -- a 5-4 vote -- a site plan for a proposed development of 81 homes along Zika Avenue NW across from the Ellis Golf Course. Much of the discussion for the project centered around the developers request some $2 million in city subsidies for the project. And in so doing, they and the City Council pointed to the January 2009 analysis by city consultant Maxfield Research Inc., which said the city would need 323 new owner-occupied housing units to replace some of the housing lost in the June 2008 flood. After the council vote, just what the council decided about subsidies remained unclear. On Friday, City Manager Jim Prosser said no city monye will be used for the project.

Out on Council Street NE, neighbors are much happier than they had been now that Sattler has set aside an earlier proposal to build a manufactured home park on the site. The idea met with strong opposition from neighbors and the city of Robins just to the north, and last September, the City Planning Commission rejected the proposal.