Ames council weighs up to $10 million in developer incentives to jump‑start housing

Ames city staff and local developers spent the council meeting detailing infrastructure needs and incentive requests tied to several planned residential projects, and council directed staff to keep negotiating specific packages rather than take immediate action. Kelly (staff member) said developers’ requests total roughly $10,000,000 and cover projects across north and south growth areas, and she presented options that range from limited oversizing matches to a larger pioneer‑infrastructure approach that could be partly funded with ARPA or other city financing. "At this point, I guess, I wanna know where the council wants to start," Kelly said.

The most urgent items discussed were sewer and road projects in the city’s northern growth corridor — including an East‑West sewer to serve Hayden’s Preserve and the newly annexed Greenbrier area, and an intersection and road work near GW Carver and Cameron School Road — plus a smaller “slip‑lining” sanitary improvement in Moore Memorial Park that staff estimated could enable roughly 100 additional homes without…