Development with 50 to 60 houses planned for site half-mile west of Newcomerstown

NEWCOMERSTOWN ‒ Plans are in the works to build a new housing development on Coshocton County Road 9 west of the village ‒ the first new housing development in Newcomerstown since the 1970s.

The development would be built on a 99.35-acre tract owned by the Wentz Trust a half mile out of town. A portion of the land is across the road from the village's West Lawn Cemetery.

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The developer is Tom Rager of Coshocton, and plans call for construction of 50 to 60 houses, according to Newcomerstown Mayor Pat Cadle. The village has pledged to provide water and sewer services to the site.

"It's one of the check marks we need when a big company is looking at our industrial park," the mayor said, not referring to any particular company. "If you're bringing 200 employees in, you want a place for some of them to live at least. They're all not going to want to commute," the mayor said.

"It's going to help us. You'll get help from revenue, but we're the closest town that has a grocery. We'll have things they'll buy here. So, they'll help our businesses too."

Newcomerstown will not be able to annex the tract because it is not contiguous to the village, he noted.

The last housing development in the area was Booth Acres, close to the McDonald's restaurant east of town.

"When we talk to these big businesses that are interested, hey, we've got this going on too. We have a lot of good things going on right now. We're very fortunate," Cadle said.

The housing development is still in the works.

Need for housing

Tiffany Swigert, executive director of the Coshocton County Port Authority, said developments like this one will help to address the need for housing in the area.

"There is a need, most definitely," she said. "I think that we really recognized that during the pandemic and how few of our properties were on the market at the time and then how quickly they transitioned into a sale, sometimes within days. So, absolutely we need it here in Coshocton."

Intel is planning on building a semiconductor fabrication plant in Licking County in the near future, and Swigert said officials fully expect that within the next decade there will be a sprawl effect from the project. People will be relocating to Coshocton County, since the county is only 55 miles from the project.

Housing study

This past year, the port authority worked with a consultant, in partnership with the Ohio Mid-Eastern Governments Association (OMEGA) and Ohio University, to do a housing study for the county.

"We felt it was really important to understand what we currently had, so that we could then facilitate discussion with developers and lay the necessary foundation for the infrastructure to build out these developments," Swigert said.

The study is complete, but it is in draft form. Officials are doing some minor revisions on the study before it is released.

Reach Jon at 330-364-8415 or at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.

This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Development with 50 to 60 houses planned for site half-mile west of Newcomerstown