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Regular Council Meeting January 12, 2015 Page 4 Mr. Napier explained in order to sell the property the City must declare the property surplus and advertise for bids. Mr. Napier also said AgPro currently has 429 acres leaded from the City of Paris that includes the 12.662 acres. He said the appraised value of the 12.662 acres of land is $89,000 which is $7,000 per acre and the minimum bid price was $89,000. A Motion to approve this item was made by Council Member Pickle and seconded by Council Member Plata. Motion carried, 7 ayes - 0 nays. A Motion to move item 21 forward on the agenda was made by Council Member Hashmi and seconded by Council Member Pickle. Motion carried, 7 ayes - 0 nays. 21. Receive and discuss update on home repair loan program. Mr. Godwin said about one and one-half years ago Council Member Hashmi put together a group of local bankers, and they were joined by Council Member Lancaster. He said the idea was to save some of the homes that would ordinarily deteriorate to the point they had to be demolished. Mr. Godwin said an agreement was reached between the financial institutions and the City to create a loan guarantee program whereby the City set aside money that was going toward demolish of homes to be used to guarantee up to 50% of each $5,000 loan to repair homes. He reported that 58 applications had been received by the City that 30 were denied due to back taxes, not within the abatement zone, not the owner, denied by the bank, and not living at the address. Mr. Godwin said the other 28 were approved for eligibility by the City that 16 had been approved by the banks and 6 had been completed. Mr. Godwin also said the program had gone extremely well and these were houses that might have gotten worse. He said citizens that had participated were extremely happy. Council Member Hashmi expressed appreciation to Carl Cecil in taking the lead and also thanked the participating banks. Council Member Hashmi said there had been no defaults and he hoped they would continue the program past the initial one year term. Mr. Cecil said it seemed to be working well, that he would get with the other banks and he thought they should meet again. Council Member Hashmi asked staff to set up the meeting. Mayor Frierson said he was glad to see it was working so well and citizens were taking advantage of the program. 18. Receive update on residential tax abatement program, and discuss possible changes to include other areas of the city and provide direction to staff. Council Member Hashmi said this program was started by the Council a couple of years ago and there had been 6 or 8 abatements. He said he placed this item on the agenda with the thought they could extend the same program to the other areas of the City to encourage more development city wide. City Attorney Kent McIlyar reported the program began October 2013 and the program was to encourage single residential development in new structures, additions or renovations that were at least 20% of the appraised value of the existing structure in Districts 1- 5. Mr. McIlyar said to date the City had received eight applications, two of which were still pending and that six that had been approved. He further said some of the projects had been completed.