Town offers incentives to build

How would you like $10,000 cash for building a new home?

If you are interested, Villa Grove has a deal for you.

Mayor Ron Hunt said his Douglas County community is poised for growth in the coming years thanks to two ongoing efforts on opposite sides of the town.

More than three dozen new homes have sprouted up in the last four years on the north side of Villa Grove in the Pheasant Pointe subdivision.

After seeing other small rural communities struggle to get new housing, Hunt and the city council created a tax increment financing district featuring Pheasant Pointe in 1999. Infrastructure construction began three years later.

As an incentive to encourage people to build there, the city awards $10,000 cash for every new home. Money for the cash awards come from the district.

"We were losing population," Hunt said. "We wanted to do something positive to convince people that Villa Grove is a great place to work and live."

So far, 37 families have built new homes in Villa Grove and received the cash awards, and Hunt said more new homes will soon be on the way.

"Construction really picked up after word got out about our incentives," Hunt said. "We believe the money we distribute is an investment in our community's future. Every time a new home is built, it increases our tax revenue and adds to our city's assessed valuation."

On the south side of town is the $2 million Richman Sports Complex, which the city has developed the past nine years.

The 60-acre facility includes an outdoor basketball court, three soccer fields, three baseball/softball diamonds, a skateboard park, a sand volleyball court, a walking and jogging path and a playground.

Eight years ago, the property was a vacant field.

Hunt said he was concerned about young people moving away from Villa Grove.

"Some of them would get a job or go to college and never came back," he said. "We have terrific schools, wonderful stores and this new subdivision, but the one thing we were missing were abundant recreation facilities."

Hunt then worked with former state Rep. (and current U.S. Rep) Tim Johnson to get a $250,000 grant for the land. Then the Illinois Department of Natural Resources provided a $350,000 grant to develop it.

Hunt, a retired University of Illinois ironworker foreman, was able to cut the cost of the recreation complex by using three city employees or enlisting the help of volunteer labor for much of the work.

For example, when the city decided to build the skateboard park, many local skateboarding children helped carry bolts and parts and helped city employees build it.

Hunt said the recreation complex is an ongoing project. For example, he believes the site would be a great location for a new community building. The old facility closed in 2005.

Other residents have suggested building a BMX bicycle racing track, a banquet hall and/or a water park.

"I think more families will move here because of this park," Hunt said. "There aren't very many communities our size that have a park this nice.

"Over the next 20 years, when all of us are dead and gone, there still will be families that enjoy that park. It will make all of our efforts worthwhile."

Hunt said the three biggest challenges facing him during the last 14 years as mayor were helping the community and its residents deal with flooding (he got $2.5 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help recover from floods); closing a multicounty landfill near town; and upgrading Villa Grove's sewer system.

"Villa Grove is a nice, quiet, peaceful community," Hunt said. "It is close enough to Champaign-Urbana that you can enjoy big-city amenities, but far enough away that you can feel safe and secure. We have a theater where folks can go to a movie and buy a drink and popcorn for a few bucks, and we have a good school system for people who want to raise families.

"When I used to work at the UI, I could leave my house and be on campus in 25 minutes. There are people who live on the west side of Champaign who need more time than that to get to campus."