Garden City ? Garden City officials are hoping to ease a housing shortage by offering incentives for developers to build new homes.

City commissioners agreed to offer developers building permit waivers and $3,000 in cash for each single-family home they build within city limits. The City Commission approved the program at last week’s commission meeting.

The city budgeted $60,000 for the program.

“In this last year, you could count the number of new houses on one of two hands,” said Mayor Nancy Harness. “The reason we’re doing this is not only to encourage development within the city but home ownership, as well.”

To qualify, a single-family home be at least 1,250 square feet and include a two-car garage. And the cash incentives are limited to the first 20 builders who apply beginning Jan. 1, 2010.

Kaleb Kentner, director of Planning and Community Development, said less than a dozen new homes a year are being built in Garden City, with only 40 to 50 homes for sale.

The occupancy rate for rental housing is near 99 percent. The need for more rental properties could be simultaneously addressed if there were more homes available on the market, he said. Commissioners hope with new single-family homes available, more people will buy them and free up rental properties.

Demand for housing extends not only across Garden City, but also in Holcomb and the surrounding areas in Finney County, Kenter said.

The program will be evaluated at the end of next year to decide whether to continue budgeting it.

Commissioners rejected incentives for developers of multi-family units such as apartments or duplexes.

“I think there was a general consensus that government money is something we’d use to encourage family-type living situations,” City Commissioner John Doll said.