MISHAWAKA — The city council voted 6-3 Monday to approve a five-year property tax abatement for a $10 million condominium project next to Beutter Park, along with a $450,000 café and plaza to link the park and the condos.
But it came after two hours of discussions about whether the city should use an abatement when the future condo owners — or “pioneers” as architect Thomas Panzica called them, for taking a chance on a new development — would buy units for $350,000 or more.
Of the three who voted against the abatements — Dale “Woody Emmons, D-1st, Mike Compton, D-5th, and Ron Banicki, D-6th — all said they are in favor of the housing development itself.
“I want this to succeed, but it needs to stand on its own,” Compton said. “And I think it can.”
Compton and Banicki said they needed more time to digest the abatement figures. City Planner Ken Prince’s rough estimates show it could save the developer about $750,000 in taxes and leave it to pay more than $833,000 in those five years. But Prince warned of delaying it so long that it would make it hard for the developer to meet the deadlines it had agreed upon with the city.
The developer, Barak Group, hopes to begin construction next spring. Mayor Dave Wood said it would fill vacant, city-owned property that hasn’t reaped tax revenue in 22 years — since this was the former Uniroyal plant.
Some council members questioned whether enough people will be willing to pay $350,000 for the condo units. Panzica, architect for the developers at the Barak Group, cited that the median cost of new homes that were built in Mishawaka over the past year was $200,000.