Cascade council affirms $5,000 per-home local support for Beachnut Homes tax-credit application after veto override fails

Cascade, Iowa — The Cascade City Council on May 11 approved a revised resolution offering $5,000 in local support per home for an eight-house development seeking Iowa workforce housing tax credits, after an attempt to overturn the mayor’s veto of additional fee waivers failed.

Developer Jason Rogers told the council the project on Beachnut Street would add eight single-family homes and argued that current development costs make a $5,000-per-unit local contribution tight; he said $7,500 per unit would better reflect road, holding and updated construction costs. "There's not a lot of money in development anymore," Rogers said, adding that the project would free up other housing stock and produce sales-tax and property-tax revenue for the city.

Council discussion focused on two related questions: whether the city should waive building permit and water/sewer hookup fees for applicants that secure the workforce housing credit, and whether providing local fee relief would set a precedent for future developers. Supporters said local support strengthens the state application and estimated the city would recoup the investment through tax revenues in the first two years; opponents warned that making fee waivers routine could extend the benefit beyond targeted workforce projects.

The council first held a roll-call vote on overturning the mayor’s veto of the broader fee-waiver package but did not reach the four-of-five majority required; that attempt failed. Councilmembers then moved to adopt a narrower resolution that retains only a $5,000-per-unit local endorsement and removes the building-permit and water/sewer waivers. The revised resolution was approved by roll call and will be updated for the developer’s state application, council staff said.

Councilmember Weber moved the revised resolution and Councilmember Delaney seconded it; Deanna (city staff) said she will prepare the updated resolution language for Jason Rogers to attach to his application. The council did not adopt a standing policy to waive fees for all future applicants; members said the narrower approach confines support to applicants using the workforce housing tax credit.

The action leaves the developer able to include local support in his state application; the council did not vote to change fee ordinances at this meeting. The developer and councilmembers discussed project financing and state grant-match figures during public comment and deliberations; according to comments at the meeting the state program award was described as $10,000 per unit with a $5,000 local match (for a $15,000 total per unit), and the council discussed that local fee waivers would represent several thousand dollars per unit in foregone revenue.

The council’s next steps, as stated at the meeting, are to finalize the updated resolution language and return it to the developer for his application. No further formal action on fee-waiver policy was approved at this meeting.