Meeting a need

City sets prices for Pep’s

Drive subdivision lots, reviews housing efforts

NEWS EDITOR

The city of Medford continued to face an area-wide housing shortage this week.

At Monday’s city council meeting, aldermen formally approved the prices for lots in the 30-lot Pep’s Drive subdivision.

Building lots in the planned Pep’s Drive subdivision will range in price from $10,000 to $17,500 each with the higher priced lots along the southern portion of the planned development bordering a branch of the Black River.

City Coordinator Joe Harris, said that while the city cannot start selling lots until after the final plat is approved for the development, they wanted to have the information available for people who were interested.

Alderman Mike Bub noted he has been asked about the lots and questioned who people should contact. Harris replied that anyone interested should contact city hall and that the city would be selling the lots directly. “If they want to use a realtor they can,” Harris said, noting that would be at the buyer’s cost.

According to Harris, the road through the subdivision is scheduled to be completed by October 15.

Mayor Mike Wellner praised the project as being another step toward addressing housing issues in the city and surrounding areas. Access to adequate housing in the city has been cited as a barrier to bringing people here for jobs available in the community.

Wellner noted that six months ago Sue Emmerich from the Medford Area Chamber of Commerce brought a presentation to the city on the four types of housing that was needed ranging from low-income “workforce” housing to housing for retirees looking to downsize.

He said that from that meeting, a housing committee was set up including business partners and work was done to target and meet those needs. The planned Pep’s Drive subdivision is just one of the results of that committee. With the workforce housing project by the Northcentral Technical College Campus and the new apartment complex near CTH O, the city is projecting to have an additional 104 apartment units available by the beginning of 2024. In addition he said the subdivision will allow people to purchase lots and build houses to their specifications.

“This is pretty exciting stuff we had done,” Wellner said.

He noted that the city’s efforts have also spurred private builders to invest in building six to eight unit apartments targeted for retirees. Wellner said he has a list of older area residents who have contacted him about wanting to sell their home and move into a nice apartment to avoid needing to do maintenance.

While noting that government seems to never go fast enough, he said the city should be proud of the progress made in the past six months. “We have hit all four of the large areas,” he said.

One of the features of the new Pep’s Drive subdivision is that in designating the lots, the city gave two of them to the Medford Area Public School district. The building trades class will build homes on those lots as hands-on learning for the students with the sale of the homes to fund future projects.

Alderman Clem Johnson asked about the timeframe for the school to develop the lots. He noted that Prentice High School had a similar program and took two school years for a house to be completed.

Bub said if they got those houses built within five years that would be a good thing. The class that will be building the homes on the two school district lots is committed to building a bathroom and concession building at Raider Field next school year and is planning to build one of the homes during the 2023-2024 school year.

In other business, council members:

_ Approved paying off the remaining amount owed for money borrowed in 2013 for development projects in Tax Incremental District (TID) No. 12 . The district was formally closed this year making way for the creation of TID 14. The remaining $460,000 in payments includes what was scheduled for this year and next year’s bond payments. The city had money set aside within the TID account for the payments.

_ Approved restructuring the $800,000 development loan with FORE Investment Group to be a TID 14 expense. The company is building a 64-unit apartment complex on land the city sold to it located on Pep’s Drive near the intersection with CTH O. According to Harris, restructuring the loan through the TID provides an extra layer of security to the city should the loan be defaulted on.

_ Approved a class A beer license for Klingbeil Lumber.

_ Approved a change in liquor license agent for the north Kwik Trip store to Joseph Werner.

_ Received word that patrol officer Sam Walter will successfully complete one year with the city on May 17 and his wage will increase from $23.95 to $27.66 per hour.

_ Approved a new city hall clerical job description. The new job description merges existing job descriptions, streamlining office operations. In the past there had been three separate job descriptions for the office clerical staff.

_ Received an update that the painting of the third city water tower located on Shattuck Street is scheduled to begin on May 23. The tower will be painted to match the one in the industrial park with a white stem and ball with a red stripe. The schedule is dependent on weather with the temperatures needing to be above 60 degrees.

Council members set the prices for the 28 available lots in the planned Pep’s Drive Subdivision. Road work will take place this summer.