New York Mills EDA explores starter homes, business loan funding
New York Mills weighed starter homes and a $256,674.24 loan fund as it looked for ways to keep young workers and families in town.
New York Mills is testing whether its economic development tools can do more than support storefronts and payrolls. At its April 15 meeting, the New York Mills Economic Development Authority discussed development within the city, including starter home options and how to put its revolving loan fund, which held $256,674.24, to work through eligible small business loans.
The meeting also showed how closely housing and economic retention now overlap in a small Otter Tail County city. Guests joined by Zoom as the board looked at ways to steer local capital toward growth, a signal that New York Mills is reaching beyond routine agenda items and into the question of who can afford to stay. The revolving loan fund is meant as gap financing for eligible small business loans, but the broader conversation centered on whether the city can also use its tools to make room for first-time buyers and new households.
That discussion comes against a countywide housing shortage. Otter Tail County says there is a low supply of housing for newcomers and for existing residents looking for options. The county’s Big Build housing initiative, launched at the end of 2019, has now produced nearly 3,000 homes that have been built or significantly rehabbed.
The pace of construction remained strong in 2024. County-linked reporting shows Otter Tail County added $94.2 million in housing investment last year, including 443 new or rehabbed units. Of those, 358 were new construction units and 85 were rehabbed units, evidence that the housing push has moved well beyond planning language and into actual building.
New York Mills has already been part of that push. The city approved a new home tax rebate program in January 2025, continuing a county-led approach that had offered up to a 100 percent tax rebate on the city and county portions of the increase in real estate taxes. The Dispatch has reported that three new housing projects were approved within the city limits under the earlier Big Build framework.
One of those projects was South Point Apartments, a 60-unit development that broke ground on Oct. 26, 2023, and opened in January 2025. Along with the city’s rebate program, it points to a broader strategy in New York Mills: use tax incentives, housing projects and local lending capacity to keep the town viable for workers, families and graduates who might otherwise leave for larger markets.
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