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Evansville to vote on student home sale

EVANSVILLE — The Evansville School District is set to close on a deal to sell one of the two student-built homes the district has been trying to unload.

The sale would allow a high school class to build another home next fall.

But school district residents must vote to approve the transaction at a special meeting Monday, District Administrator Heidi Carvin said.

Voter approval is required because the offer to purchase includes an empty lot. Before a school district can buy land, residents have to vote to authorize the purchase at a special meeting, Carvin said.

Under the agreement, the buyer would sell an empty lot at 660 Hillside Court to the district as part of payment for the three-bedroom, two-bathroom home at 454 S. 6th St., she said.

If voters approve, closing is scheduled for Tuesday.

The building trades class built the home last year, and it has been on the market since April 2010.

The district originally listed the home at $199,000, and Carvin estimated the purchase price between $190,000 to $192,000, with the district taking off $35,000 for the empty lot it would be acquiring.

"It's within our break-even range on constructing it," she said.

The district could either sell the lot on Hillside Court or use it for another student-built home, she said.

Students are finishing the district's fourth student-built house, which Carvin said offers time to evaluate the program and decide how to proceed in fall.

"We're hoping to have a meeting with some people in the area to take a look at whether or not we should be building every year," she said.

That meeting would probably be in April or May, and a recommendation would be made to the school board.

"Our preference is to continue doing it every year," she said. "It gives kids the real experience of what it's like to work with the trades and what that progression is."

District policy states it can't have more than two houses on the market at the same time, so the pending sale would allow for students to build in fall.