The City of Kalona is in the planning phase of a potential housing development and flood mitigation efforts after a recent land purchase.

The Kalona City Council approved hiring Ben Curtis to be a contractor for future planning and grant writing for the use of a 54.12 acreage on the north end of town that was purchased from the Duane and Jeanette Yoder estate in April. Curtis is working for the English River Watershed Management Authority until December. City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh shares what Curtis’ position will entail, “Ben’s role on this will be helping work directly with FEMA, with Iowa Homeland Security, also with the Iowa Flood Center, and engineering firms as we start to go forward to design and implement those. We’re also a community-rated community with our FEMA rating system, so we’ll look to try to take that to another level or two for another 5-10% discount for those individuals who are under mandatory flood insurance.”

The city plans to use about 11.4 acres of the property for flood mitigation practices including a retention pond, five acres for park space per the Yoders’ wishes, and the rest of the land will be subdivided for housing. The land is currently being rented for crop production, and Schlabaugh hopes that work on the retention pond will start next year.