Minor Amendment-MUSA Expansion Requests

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5 I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Residential The City has experienced steady growth in the 1980's with accelerated growth in real numbers of new households over the last two years. Table 5 illustrates the number of building permits issued over the past eleven years. As shown, urban service areas have only been available since 1985 with all prior development activity in non-sewered areas. Public sewer and water systems were first constructed in 1985 with an initial 22 homes constructed in the 'Sewered areas. The number of homes built in urban area nearly doubled in 1986 and doubled again in 1987. In 1988, the total number of permits issued was approximately the same as in 1987 indicating a leveling off of housing activity paralleling regional trends. In 1989, 121 new residential permits were issued again paralleling regional and national trends of decreased new housing starts. The number of permits issued for urban area development was essentially the same in 1988 as in 1987. Of the 121 new home starts in 1989, 30 were developed in the urban area. Discussions with contractors and developers in the City brought forth the concern that the flattening of growth in the urban area was due primarily to the limited supply of quality lots remaining in the urban service area. The permits issued for sewered and non-sewered areas indicate that approximately 55% of the lots developed in 1987 and 1988 are in the non-sewered area and 45% are in the urban area. In 1989, only 25% of new housing starts were in the urban area with the remainder occurring in the non-sewered "rural" area. This trend continued into 1990 with 119 residential building permits being issued of which only 28 (24%) were for urban lots. In 1991, 26 permits of the 149 (17%) issued were for the urban area. Table 5 further supports the reduced number of building permits is directly related to the number of urban lots available. The chart shows that the number of permits for the urban area shadows the number of lots available. This is shown by the fact that in 1986 & 1987 the City had a large number of urban lots available as the number of available lots decreased so did the number of permits used. When the number of urban lots available decreased so did the number of building permits issued to urban areas. This is emphasized by the following comparison; in 1986 with 145 permits, 43 or 30% of the permits were for the urban area as compared to 1991 with 149 permits and 26 or only 17% for the urban area. The City desires a greater emphasis on development within the sewered urban area. The City, by the end of May, had received 97 building permits for single family homes; of this, 22 were for homes in the urban services area. By the end of June, with the completion of some of the City services to new urban lots, this number had increased to over 22% of the total single family building permits issued. As this trend continues with the completion of the City services to subdivisions, the number of permits issued should continue to represent a larger percentage of the total permits issued. As shown in Table 3, the City currently has 115 acres of land zoned residential remaining undeveloped in the MUSA area. This number is somewhat misleading. As shown on Figure 2, the City has received and/or is currently in the process of granting final plat approval to 39 acres of this area leaving 78 acres of property which could be developed with residential housing. Owners of the available properties are actively seeking buyers to develop these remaining parcels. Some have already been purchased with the intent to be developed in the next two to three years. The City currently estimates that builders will require a total of 256 lots total during 1992, and that the estimated number in the urban area being 45% of the total 115 lots will be absorbed in 1992. This figure is based on the three (3) year average of permits issued during the first five (5) months of the year. With the currently approved subdivisions and the phases