A committee reviewing Minot’s economic development efforts wrapped up its work Friday after adding a recommendation that the Minot City Council create a new Land Development Partnership Committee to encourage housing development.

Committee and council member Paul Pitner outlined an initiative in which the city would connect landowners and developers, offer incentives to make projects more feasible, streamline regulatory or permitting processes, and encourage infill, affordable housing and mixed use growth.

He mentioned the prohibitive $87,000 cost per lot to develop residential land owned by the Minot Public School District near Ramstad Middle School.

“There’s a gap in cost, where some of these things just do not pencil out,” he said.

Incentives might include tax abatements, fee waivers, pre-development grants, expedited permitting, utility assistance, regulatory changes or zoning amendments, he said. He cited the infrastructure grants that Williams County is offering.

“People are starting to try new things because we’re kind of up against the wall. We need to be more proactive, and I think if we don’t start doing some of those things, or start being open or looking at some of those things, we are going to get left behind,” Pitner said.

He added the money could come from existing sources, such as the MAGIC Fund.

The Land Development Partnership committee would keep an inventory of properties, evaluate proposals for development, develop recommendations for incentives and report quarterly to the city council on progress, he said.

Committee member and Minot banker Jordan Nelson noted the rise in interest rates that would need to be worked around to encourage housing development. Pitner said the high prices paid for land during the oil boom and the rising cost of infrastructure add to the difficulty in bringing homes to market.

However, Pitner and Nelson also spoke about how quickly homes on the market and homes being built get snapped up because demand exceeds the inventory.

“We need it accelerated on a larger scale,” Nelson said of housing development. “You’re leaving up to local people who don’t have the capacity to build at the level that we need right now, largely because we’ve sat on our hands for so long that now we’re behind and we’ve got to catch up.”

City Manager Harold Stewart said the return on investment for developers is higher with commercial property currently in Minot.

“”We’re a hot market, but we’re not as hot as some others, and some of these companies that are still in the game of doing this, they’re focused on bigger markets with higher return on investment,” Stewart said. “Until our community comes to the realization that perhaps the government has to have some role in this, including financially in covering the cost of infrastructure roads – water, sewer, those kinds of things – it’s going to be difficult to break down that wall.”

A Land Development Partnership Committee could promote community conversation and help tackle some issues, he said.

Folding the MAGIC Fund Screening Committee and Renaissance Zone Review Committee into the partnership committee also was discussed. A previous proposal to merge the MAGIC Fund and Renaissance Zone committees received a mixed reception from the economic development review committee, and the committee on Friday eliminated it from the list of recommendations going to council. However, the idea will go to the council as an option in considering a partnership committee.

The committee voted 4-0, with three members absent, to send its drafted recommendations to the council. The committee began discussions last November.

Among recommendations are prioritizing local matching funds for state PACE and Flex PACE programs, continuing the Builders Property Tax Exemption and Homeowners Property Tax Exemption programs and reviewing the Facade Improvement Program to consider the amount of city investment and program sunset date. Current city investment has averaged $2 for every $1 in private investment into downtown facade improvement projects.