Hamlet officials continue debating how to get a new home built on a piece of town-owned land at Lincoln and Pearl streets. During last week’s town council meeting, President Dave Kesvormas once again suggested selling the lot and then refunding the purchase price once a home is built to the town’s specifications.
“It’s in the interest of economic development; I’ll say it like that,” he explained. “We don’t have a lot of people banging our door down begging to buy it. We have people begging us to give it to them, but if they’re going to do it that way, I don’t want somebody to buy it and build a garage or buy it and sit on it and we only collect the tax for an unimproved lot.”
But Council Member Brian Earnest pointed out that the town could put the same stipulations on the site’s development, if it were to accept sealed bids. “I think we just include in there, ‘If you default, you owe us this much,’” Earnest said.
“But if they go bankrupt, how are you going to get blood from a turnip, I guess is what I’m saying,” Kesvormas replied.
“Well, then you get the land back,” Earnest answered. “That’s the other part of it.”
“What if they’ve already started building the house on it?” Kesvormas asked. “Then it ends up getting sticky.”
There was also some discussion about how much time a buyer should be given to build a home and whether or not a real estate agent needs to be used. Council members did seem to agree that they wanted a home built on the lot as soon as possible, and they hoped that would encourage home building on other vacant lots.
They agreed to discuss the issue further during a work session on January 8 at 6:00 p.m.
