PARK RAPIDS — The Hubbard County Board of Commissioners is considering dissolving their current housing and redevelopment authority and creating a combined county-wide HRA and economic development authority.
The recommendation for a combined authority is the product of a committee involving Hubbard County stakeholders, including school and city officials, township representatives and chambers of commerce.
The Headwaters Regional and Heartland Lakes development commissions are two entities that cover portions of Hubbard County, but without a county-wide authority, County Administrator Jeff Cadwell said the county’s smaller cities are missing out on development opportunities.
"The city of Park Rapids has an EDA, but the rest of the smaller cities do not. Most of the townships don't have access to those opportunities as well,” said Cadwell. “Why are we recommending a combined authority? So that we only have one board and we only have one administrative expense to manage those very related purposes.”
The change, which must proceed with formal action before the Hubbard County Board, would not increase the annual HRA levy the county currently collects, last set at $120,000. Instead, the levy would be allocated to the new authority under the Board.
Cadwell cited an example where a county-wide EDA could have helped clean up blighted properties.
“The city of Akeley in the spring sale was not interested in acquiring two residential parcels that are available that need a little cleanup," Cadwell said.
“The combined authority could acquire those properties for free, contract to develop them and sell them as... one of the functions that an HRA-EDA ought to be doing.”
While the Hubbard County board was in a consensus to proceed with drafting the legal change, Commissioner David De La Hunt pointed to some of the advantages smaller, nonprofit entities have over elected boards.
"...When a business is approaching a business concept or idea, it can remain confidential for some period of time, where you don't have that with the pseudo-government entities,” De La Hunt said.
"A lot of businesses are going to be afraid to approach that and start looking at development ideas because they want confidentiality until it gets to the point where they're ready to go.”
If approved, the change would place Hubbard County among a short list of counties in the state that currently have county-wide economic development authorities, including Itasca.
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