But Aurora is an exception. Thanks to a bustling industrial sector led by construction of the $250 million Aurora West ethanol plant, Aurora has been virtually immune to housing slumps.

"Currently, Aurora is out of lots or out of buildable lots," said Bob Benes of Aspen Home Builders in Lincoln. "So demand is very great."

Benes is developing the first 20 acres of a 200-acre piece of former farmland on Aurora's north side, just west of Highway 14. The first phase, to be considered for final approval by the Aurora City Council on Tuesday, calls for 30 lots, with grading to begin as soon as this summer.

If those lots sell well, he hopes to continue building if homes keep selling, Benes said, he could build as many as 350 homes over the next 15 years or so.

It's an ambitious plan for a town of 4,200, but Aurora's recent history is on his side.

Several major subdivisions have been successfully developed in town over the past decade or two, and in the most recent, Lincoln Creek, only a few lots remain.

In fact, Aurora's biggest problem has not been finding buyers, but finding land to build on.

"The key thing here is the availability of land," Mayor Marlin Seeman said. "We need to have lots available."

Aurora's landlocked status was what led two local trusts, the Frank & Alice Farr Trust and the Wortman Family Trust, to buy the land three years ago as an investment.

Members of the Farr Trust had seen what a difficult time Memorial Hospital had finding land to build an assisted living community during the late 1990s, said Jim Koepke, its co-trustee.

The trustees determined that the next time a piece of farmland near the city came up for sale, they would snatch it up for future development.

They got their chance in 2005 with 200 acres of perfectly located farmland, just north of Streeter Park and just west of Highway 14.

"When this land became available, we knew it had to be purchased for our future growth," Koepke said.

The trustees waited two years for a developer before getting in touch with Benes, who specializes in building in small towns. Koepke said the trustees checked out his other projects in places such as Waverly and Ashland and received good reports all around (His company is not related to the Colorado Aspen Home Builders that formerly ran a plant in Central City).

The Northridge Subdivision's first phase contains many of the larger homes planned for the project, though Benes said he plans to build more middle-income houses later on.

The plans have sped through the city council and planning commission. City Administrator Mike Bair said costs within the subdivision for streets, water and sewer would be assessed to homeowners.

The city would also have to do a small water and sewer loop improvement to connect the area, though Bair said that work needed to be done anyway. The costs of that project have not been estimated.

City officials and trustees are confident that sufficient demand will exist to make Benes' project successful. They point to the area's strong economy, driven by rich farmland and steady employers, as evidence that Aurora can withstand uncertainty in the market.

"You just look back over the last three or four decades, and every five years there's some significant employer development," said Gary Warren, a Wortman trustee and member of the Aurora Area Chamber and Development Corp.'s housing committee. "We don't seem to see that time when everything's down."

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