During its regular meeting Tuesday, the Ogden City Council voted unanimously to adopt a final concept plan for the infill housing project at 605 N Jackson Avenue.

Community Development Manager Jeremy Smith said the 7.01-acre property had been bought by the city from the Ogden School District in 2023 and an additional .34 acres were purchased in October.

He said that several concepts for a neighborhood were considered with Wasatch Civil engineers with one standing above the rest.

“It’s 29 single-family home building lots,” he said. “This project will also incorporate the the repavement and installation of curb-and-gutter along Jackson Avenue that’s currently not there. It would be public streets put in here. The canal I mentioned on the west of the property would be piped and there would be an existing easement that would remain on the project, and then there would be pedestrian access to the existing neighborhood to the west.”

The plan is for the 29 single-family detached homes to be from 1,450-1,800 square-feet with an ADU unfinished basement, Waterwise Landscaping and sold to owner occupants through the Home Sweet Ogden program.

A future CIP expenditure estimated at $1,335,000 would be needed to pay for road and utility construction.

“The construction of the homes will be done with our existing Synchrony Line of Credit and the proceed of sale on each of the homes are then used to pay back the construction and any carrying costs that occur,” Smith said.

Following the vote, council member Dave Graf said he’s unsure about having the cost of infrastructure being borne by the CIP.

“Incorporate that cost of improvement — water, sewer, street, curb, gutter — at some level into the cost of the homes,” he said. “I think that the homes should carry the cost rather than taxing the public as a whole and I’d like to see us kind of open that door and start to study that a little bit.”

Smith said local housing costs are already a challenge enough as is, but the prices will help bring some of that money back to the city.

“The price is so high right now,” he said. “Even these homes will be higher than anybody ever dreamed they would be because of how much it costs to build a house. The benefit of those high prices, though, is that we can start to incorporate some of those costs and if there’s enough efficiencies in that initial construction of the home, we should be able to recoup those costs upon the sale of the home, so we’re not just subsidizing an entire project. You can actually get money back and recoup some of those costs.”

No further details were discussed about a timeline or the next steps in the process.