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Deline in housing starts is good news for city
(by Sue Reid - January 29, 2009)
Deline in housing starts is good news for city
By SUE REID
Housing starts are down significantly in Solon, Planning Director Robert S. Frankland said, and the city is reaching a point of being built out.
From the city's and school system's perspective, though, that is not necessarily a bad thing, Mr. Frankland said. "We are at or near the target population we want to have in the city. It's not in the city's interest to have the population grow beyond where it is now."
Mr. Frankland explained that the city does not bring in a significant amount of revenue from its residential taxes, and that's true everywhere. Those taxes tend not to cover the cost of the services provided to residents, he said.
"The reason that the city is able to provide the first-rate services it does is because of our very large, healthy industrial base," Mr. Frankland said. "That is the reason why it is not in our interest to increase population, because you're spreading the revenues from the industrial base over a larger number of residents, which means you're able to provide less service for each resident."
For the past four to five years, Solon has been consistently averaging over 100 new homes a year, Mr. Frankland said. "Now, we're below 20 houses for last year." He attributed that decrease to the obvious problems with the housing market in general.
"It's tough for everybody," Mr. Frankland said of getting the necessary financing for a home. However, Solon residents "will weather this better than other communities," he said.
"It is very desirable to be in Solon. Our schools are ranked consistently as best in the state. That in itself gives us tremendous advantage over neighboring communities."
Not only are there not many residential lots left in the city, Mr. Frankland said, large subdivisions with 200 lots are a thing of the past. "We were getting very large subdivisions 10 to 20 years ago with 200 lots. Now, we're getting small subdivisions with 10, 20 lots," he said. "That's what we are going to be having in the future."
The Southwoods subdivision, which is off of Pettibone Road across from Sycamore Estates was approved recently and has nine lots.
"The days of the 200-lot subdivision is over in Solon," Mr. Frankland said. "There's just not a significant amount of land in the city to accommodate large subdivisions."
He said Solon has been planning toward residential build-out for 15 to 20 years. Zoning was implemented in the 1990s to increase minimal lot size requirements, he said.
"It's been an actual goal of the city to limit population growth." He said Solon has about 25,000 residents and slightly over 8,000 homes.
The most common zoning classification in the city is for one acre, which is a "substantial lot size," Mr. Frankland said.
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