OCEAN CITY — Ocean City’s two-year homeownership incentive pilot program has been so successful thus far, resort officials voted to expand the budget for the initiative.
Earlier this year, the Mayor and Council approved a two-year pilot program to encourage more year-round residents to make Ocean City their permanent home by offering incentives including relaxing some up-front costs such as building fees, for example. The two-pronged incentive program also includes property tax deferrals for the first few years a new resident makes Ocean City his or her home.
Although technically the program is not an expenditure for the town, but rather a reduction in revenue, the program is listed as a line item in the budget at $50,000 per year. On Tuesday, Planning and Community Development Director Bill Neville, whose department oversees the homeowner incentive program, said nine applications have been approved, tapping out the initiative’s $50,000 budget.
“We’ve had an immediate response,” he said. “The word got out and people are hearing about the program from their Realtor or builder. We’ve reached that $50,000 threshold, so my question is, should we stop taking applications until the next fiscal year or expand the budget. The recommendation is to expand the budget by $25,000 to keep the program rolling through the end of the fiscal year.”
Any place that needs to give incentives to move there is probably not a place that you want to live.