photo by: Matt Resnick/Journal-World

Eudora Assistant City Manager Zack Daniel briefs Douglas County commissioners on a proposed housing development project on Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2024, at the Douglas County Courthouse.

To lay the groundwork for a nearly 120-home development in Eudora, the city’s leaders will soon decide on whether to create a special housing district to take advantage of new state tax incentives, Douglas County leaders heard on Wednesday.

At the County Commission’s meeting, Eudora Assistant City Manager Zack Daniel spoke about the plans for the new housing district, which would be for an expansion of the Shadow Ridge subdivision located just west of Eudora High School. The city hopes right now that the project could add 118 mostly 2-to-4 bedroom single-family housing units for the city, which currently has about 6,000 residents but expects to grow significantly with the arrival of the $4 billion Panasonic battery plant in nearby De Soto.

The district itself is something Eudora has to create in order to get state tax incentives to help pay for infrastructure in the new development. It would work much like the commercial incentive districts that have been used to fund projects in Lawrence before, but these types of incentives aren’t typically seen in housing development projects, and there have been some questions about how it might work.

“I don’t think we’re all completely convinced that it’s the best end-all path to do it,” Eudora Mayor Tim Reazin told the Journal-World this week. “But I think this option helps to incentivize without taking money out of our pockets to keep rehabbing older parts of town.”

Daniel said Wednesday that the Eudora City Commission would be holding a public hearing about the district and possibly voting on whether to create it at a meeting on Monday.

The state tax incentive is called the Reinvestment Housing Incentive District program, and it was originally aimed at spurring residential development in smaller communities in western Kansas, Daniel said. But it was recently expanded to include larger communities, too.

As the Journal-World reported, the incentives would work something like this: When the development increases the local tax base, the district would capture new tax dollars the development created and use them to pay for costs associated with the development. Daniel said that could be things like storm sewers and drainage systems, street grading and paving, public rights-of-way, sidewalks and streetlights.

The district would not result in a direct tax break for homeowners, as the Journal-World reported.

County Commissioner Patrick Kelly asked during the meeting whether “all the taxes that are being set aside” are “going to municipal improvements, or do they go to county improvements?”

“They go to public improvements located within the designated district,” Daniel said. “And in this case, the designated district is in the city of Eudora. Those incremental increases in the property taxes would be used to pay for those improvements.”

Daniel said Eudora city leaders have already taken some steps toward making the district a reality, including completing something called a Housing Needs Analysis. The analysis is a prerequisite for taking part in the tax incentive program — “the state has a pretty rigid recipe that communities have to follow,” Daniel said — and Eudora’s analysis states that the current lack of quality housing is a substantial deterrent to the “future well-being” of the community.

State statute doesn’t require any taxing entities other than the city to vote on the district, meaning the County Commission and the Eudora school board don’t have to take any action for it to move forward, Daniel said. They will, however, have the option to protest the creation of the district if the City Commission votes to move forward.

The next step in the process is the City Commission’s public hearing, scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday at Eudora City Hall, 4 E. Seventh St. If the district is approved, Daniel said, the city hopes the new home construction could start in late 2024 or early 2025, and he estimated the construction of “15 to 28 houses in the first three years.”

In other business, county commissioners:

• Unanimously approved an amendment for the planned restoration of the Douglas County Courthouse, authorizing architectural design firm Hernly Associates Inc. to perform design and documentation services that are tied to the second phase of the project. The restoration work is centered on above-grade stone masonry. The amendment also ensures that Hernly Associates Inc. will get paid for the work at a percentage of the total cost of construction. Under the new contract, that fee is set at 7.5%.

• Approved, in the consent agenda, a measure authorizing Public Works Director Chad Voigt to execute an agreement with the Kansas Department of Transportation outlining reimbursement to Douglas County for noxious weed treatment on state highways for the 2024 calendar year.

• Approved, in the consent agenda, a measure authorizing the Public Works Department to purchase a 2025 Mack semi-tractor from Kansas City, Missouri-based Nextran Truck Center in the amount of $181,535.00.