By a narrow 3-2 vote City Commissioners on Thursday night approved the amended Economic Development Policy for the City of Hays containing the Rural Housing Improvement District Policy.

The RHID policy states only developments containing a minimum of 10 renter-occupied low or moderate-income qualified units would qualify for RHID status. The low-income housing language was included in the policy at the request of Commissioner Ron Mellick

An RHID captures incremental real property taxes created by a development in an attempt to reduce overall costs. The developer pays taxes only on the value of the undeveloped land prior to improvements.

Greg Thyfault, who represented the independent living resource center SKIL, the Domestic Violence Organization Options, and the disability advocacy organization LINK told commissioners the problem on a lack of low income and accessible housing was not going away and he thought it was getting worse. “We would like to ease the burden of everybody who has a disability in town. To have a little bit more availability when they are going to look for an apartment,” he said.

Vice Mayor Henry Schwaller said he believed the proposal was to narrow in scope, “I think it should include single family dwellings and I think it should have a provision requiring accessible housing and it’s not in there and that outrages me.”

Mayor Kent Steward said he did believe there is a need for low income housing in Hays but that the proposed policy did not address accessible housing. “There is nothing in this that says someone is going to come in and build accessible housing. All it talks about is low-income housing and I’m not sure how we even define that.  Commissioners Mellick, Musil and Phelps voted in favor of the proposal.

In addition, Commissioners Approved the final plat of the RAG addition, the area off of 22nd Street and General Hays Road.

Approved rezoning of the Luecke Addition.

Approved the Golden Belt 8th Addition engineering services agreement.

They also approved the addendum to the memorandum of agreement with the Hays Fraternal Order of Police Lodge for 2014.