The city of Woodland Hills and developers in the city are hoping to attract new landowners by cutting prices and fees.

"Some of the properties up here have been cut back to the prices they were in 2004, up to 40 percent," said City Councilman Steve Carter.

A lot that once sold for $250,000 is now priced at $150,000, and Carter said the city is doing its part to convince property owners to build on their lots as well.

A financial committee was formed by the city council a few months ago to determine what could be done to improve lagging money from new construction. Carter said the city has quite a few lots that have utilities to the property and are ready for a home to be built, and the accompanying revenue would help the city.

"If all those were built out, our city would pretty much be at a level-head-above-water situation financially," he said.

Carter said the city spoke with developers and came up with an ad campaign to coincide with the Parade of Homes to try to attract new residents. The developer dropped prices on lots, and the city deferred impact fees and building permits to make starting a home easier. Carter said that by deferring the payments for up to a year and charging only $1 to begin the application process for building permits, home builders have the chance to fold these costs into mortgage payments.

"We don't know what the short-term or long-term results will be, but we thought it would be a reasonable idea," Carter said.

The whole idea is to attract new people to Woodland Hills, a city Carter said many people do not know about. Many of the current residents had never heard of the city until somehow stumbling upon it and deciding to stay, he said.

Realtor Dave Priest, who is working with seller Grizzly Mountain Development, said the developer was interested in lowering prices because lot sales have not picked up through the winter as hoped.

"Collectively, we decided he would discount his rates," Priest said. "We knocked off about $100,000 per lot."

Priest said the developer approached the city, which also was looking to increase building, and the plan for discounting lots and deferring payments came up. The market is much lower than it was in recent years, and Priest said he hopes the discounts will help move the lots into new hands.

"Hopefully, this will definitely make a difference," he said.

Mayor Toby Harding said it is too soon to tell if the fee deferrals have had any impact, but he hopes it will help provide income for the city.

"We're trying to encourage building so we can provide funding for the infrastructure of Woodland Hills," he said.