The city of Hickman is trying to attract home builders by cutting building permit fees by 40 percent through the end of the year.

A flier sent to area builders urges them to "Come build in Hickman and move to the Norris School District."

Hickman is temporarily reducing its single-family home permits to $1,875.

In Lincoln, building permits for a 2,500-square-foot house is $598.

But impact fees on that home total $4,685.

Lincoln Building & Safety director Fred Hoke suspects Hickman's "building permit" fee includes impact fees, although nobody in the Hickman Building & Zoning office was available to elaborate Tuesday.

In light of Hickman's blue-light special, a Lincoln homebuilder asked the City Council here to consider temporarily reducing its development impact fees - one-time fees that offset the cost of providing roads, parks and water and sewer service to new developments.

Impact fees are charged to builders but are often folded into the cost of a house and passed on to buyers.

Lois Hartzell of Vistar Homes Inc. recently wrote to the council, asking it to consider following in the footsteps of dozens of California cities that are reducing or deferring impact fees.

Of course, fees in Lincoln pale in comparison to California, where the average impact fee is about $50,000 but can reach into six figures in some areas, according to the California Building Industry Association.

Although it's difficult to compare because some cities also charge fees for libraries, schools and fire stations, one study concluded impact fees nationally average $10,500.

In Lincoln, housing construction has plummeted from more than 2,400 homes, apartments, duplexes and townhomes in 2003 to 667 last year. (There was a rush to build in 2003 before impact fees were instituted.)

In the first five months of 2009, 238 permits have been issued.

The Lincoln City Council has already taken action to try to spur building by freezing impact fee rates - for the second year in a row - rather than adjusting them for inflation.

Commission says 'no' to small sign at Grand Manse

So what did the Historic Preservation Commission decide to do about the 18-inch circular sign that periodically advertises events on the side of the Grand Manse (formerly the Old Federal Building) between Ninth and 10th streets on P Street?

Although the commission allowed the Grand Manse to put up large electronic advertising signs flanking the northwest and southeast corners of the building, it drew the line at the small sign.

The Grand Manse put the small sign up to advertise gallery shows.

Commission member Cathy Beecham said she did not want to see signs attached to the historic building, although she wouldn't have a problem with a freestanding sandwich board sign instead.

The commission agreed the sign is not appropriate for the building.

Changes to Tool House get green light

The Historic Preservation Commission also got a presentation from Speedway Properties on work it wants to do to the Tool House building in the Haymarket at 800 Q St.

Speedway is working on building a hotel on the west side of the block. That would involve demolishing the now-vacant antique store at Eighth and R streets.

Speedway went before the historic commission to get permission to do work on the Tool House to create access to the basement, put steps into what would be a restaurant and outside dining area, remove a ramp on the west side and create a handicap-accessible ramp to the lower level.

Craig Smith, one of the owners of Speedway Properties, told the commission there's interest in adding housing to the top and possibly middle floors of the Tool House, but they could build offices on the second and third floors. And they've discussed restoring the loading docks and creating storefronts, he said.

Smith said Speedway is close to an agreement with the city on using tax increment financing, an urban renewal financing tool in which property taxes are diverted toward the project.

The historic commission was supportive of the designs shown.

He said it

"It doesn't appear there's going to be a road built on the second floor, so that's a concern."

- Councilman Adam Hornung, on using the city's Special Assessments Revolving fund, which was designed to pay for things like roads, to create a development center on the second floor of city hall.

Reach Deena Winter at 473-2642 or dwinter@journalstar.com.