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| Marketing is crucial for incentive plan to be successful |
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| Opinion | |||
| Written by Editorial Board | |||
| Wednesday, 03 February 2010 08:00 | |||
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Paola City Council members took a proactive step last week toward reviving the local housing market. Now city officials can only wait and hope that their incentive plan will attract homebuyers. Since reviewing an initial proposal by businessman Hannes Poetter a couple of months ago, city officials have been working diligently to find a way to encourage people to build new homes in Paola. The final plan, which was approved during the Jan. 26 council meeting, waives water and sewer hook-up fees for eligible homebuyers. The plan originally was going to include income restrictions, but council members eliminated those from the plan before approving it last week. And they were right to do so. Such a restriction would only hinder the goal of the incentive plan, which is to get as many people as possible to consider buying or building a new home here. The city’s next big task will be marketing the incentive plan — a job that should not be overlooked. The hard work of officials would be lost if potential homebuyers are unaware of the money they could save by targeting Paola for a new home. With the help of a solid community development department, along with the efforts of Economic Development Coordinator Carol Everhart, Paola is in a prime position to make the incentive program a success. Hopefully, the money that will be lost from the elimination of fees will come back to the city, and then some, in future revenue from new residents, as Poetter predicts. It’s a risk worth taking to fight back against a struggling economy that already has drained so much out of the city’s coffers and left many homebuilders in a similar financial crisis.
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