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Housing Reports Provide Insight Into Local Trends in Nicollet County
Affordable housing in the form of apartments are being built but not fast enough and few single family homes are being built whatsoever in an area with the highest home prices on average in the state. By Robert Lawson Publisher info@nicolletcountyledger.com NICOLLET COUNTY -- The 2023 profile for Nicollet County from Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP) was released to the public. Renter and owner households in 2021 were compared to generate data for the report. “Our existing homes are aging and increasingly unaffordable, with few
N i c o l l e t County Law Enforcement Pro Retiring From Sheriff’s Office
new ones being built,” the study authors wrote. In 2022, the homelessness count totaled 19,600. Eviction filings in the county totaled 68. Nicollet County is in the study’s Southern Region for data collection. There were approximately 12,733 households in the county that the data was drawn from using U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2021, 1 year estimates. This data was also used to calculate the household cost burden for residents in Nicollet County.
About a quarter of 2021 Nicollet County households are renters, or 3,212 renters, and about 36 percent of rental units in the county were built before 1970. There were 112 multifamily units permitted in 2022. Up until 2021, according to MHP, rent only declined by six percent over a five year period. Meanwhile, 2021 owner households comprised 75 percent of the households in the county, or 9,521 owners. About 37 percent of those homes were built before 1970 as well but only 87 single family permits were issued and the median home
After 30 years in Law enforcement and 29 years at the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office, Investigator Marc Chadderdon will be retiring from the Nicollet County Sheriff’s Office. He sent a news release to members of the media to announce his retirement this past week. “I am proud to have served the residents of Nicollet County as a custody officer, deputy sheriff, and the last 17 years as a criminal investigator,”he said. “Thank you all for your support over the years!” Chadderon previously ran for Sheriff of Nicollet County unsuccessfully against the longtime incumbent Nicollet County Sheriff Dave Lange.
value increased by ten percent over five years to a whopping $216,200 per home. Increases in rent or home value have been adjusted for inflation, according to MHP. As the Ledger previously reported, Minnesota Realtors also released December and 2023 annual housing market statistical data for the South Central part of the state. It showed that new listings are up 63 percent from December 2022. Also, pending sales are up 68.8 percent from December 2022. Statewide, December shows new
listings are up 12 percent and pending sales rose 8.7 percent while interest rates are beginning to fall. It was a down year overall with higher interest rates (hovering around 7 percent most of the year), the lowest level of closed sales since 2010, new listings down every year since 2019. It’s the lowest level of pending sales since 2010 and home sales are down more than 30 percent from 2019 levels. Also, the median sale price has risen every year since 2012. A trend is showing more buyers are opting for smaller homes (related to this
national theme), creating added demand for affordable, entry-level homes, the group said. The MHP data for cost burdened households show that 16 percent (1,537) are owners and 44 percent (1,366) are renters. There were around 679 severely cost burdened renters, which made up around 22 percent of the total cost burdened households altogether. Low income Minnesotans in the area total 2,013 and of those 1,175 are low-income renters and 452 are senior citizens who
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Photo: Glow Party at Hoover
All Hoover Elementary school students and families were invited to the first ever Glow Party to celebrate I LOVE TO READ MONTH at Hoover Elementary School between 5 and 6:30 p.m. on February 8. Students enjoyed a variety of activities in the dark with glowsticks and blacklights in the gyms and classrooms at the school.
Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management Off to Rocky Start But Trying to Fast Track Cannabis Business Licensure and Strengthen Equity Program By Robert Lawson Publisher info@nicolletcountyledger.com
ing early advantages to equity businesses, according to reporting from Marijuana Moment, a cannabis news source partially funded by its Officials in Minnesota are report- readers and partially by advertisers, edly trying to fast track an approach sponsorships and other donations. to expediting legal sales and givState officials may start to issue
temporary licenses ahead of the originally planned and proposed schedule under the state’s Office ofr Cannabis Management (OCM). They say it would expedite the 2025 plan for a market launch in the state give social equity applicants a
head start in the business of selling cannabis, a substance that remains federally illegal despite around two dozen states legalizing it in some form or another. Minnesota passed a recreational use law and leaves regulation of the industry up to the
OCM to manage. The office under Gov. Tim Walz had some recent press coverage related to failure in background procedures while hiring for OCM personnel this year but the office and the Walz administration seem undeterred by these stum-
bles. Democrats passed the legislation into law with some significant Republican support but also some criticism from them and from some law enforcement group and people, including Nicollet County Sheriff
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