June 17, 2004

Home, Inc. receives grant for affordable housing effort

Yellow Springs Home, Inc. learned last month that it will receive nearly $400,000 in state grant monies to help build 11 affordable homes in Yellow Springs, the group’s director, Marianne MacQueen, said Monday.

Home, Inc., a community land trust, will use the funds to purchase the land on which the houses will sit, MacQueen said in an interview at Home, Inc.’s office. The organization has either purchased or has options to buy five lots, she said, and is looking for additional property that it will develop under a project with Innovative Housing Solutions, a division of Oberer Companies.

Though Home, Inc. has identified enough people to purchase these houses, MacQueen said the organization has had difficulties finding property owners willing to sell their land at reasonable prices.

While there is vacant land inside Yellow Springs and adjacent to the village that can be developed, according to MacQueen, “most property owners” are either not interested in selling or “the price of the land makes it economically unfeasible for us to build housing on it.”

As an example, MacQueen cited one larger parcel, zoned Residence B in Yellow Springs, on which four houses could be built, but the property owner is asking for over $60,000 a lot. A vacant parcel outside town is going for $40,000 an acre, MacQueen said. The cost of extending utilities to land in Miami Township, however, increases development costs.

“It’s not only Home, Inc.,” she said. “No builder is going to go into Residence B and pay $60,000 for a lot.”

Home, Inc. has paid an average of $34,000 to $35,000 for the lots it controls, according to MacQueen.

Home, Inc.’s need to find land to develop became necessary, MacQueen said, when a deal fell through between Antioch and Oberer for Birch III, a 22-acre property on the south end of town. Home, Inc. had an agreement with Innovative Housing Solutions, part of Oberer, a Dayton real estate and development company, to build six homes on the property, MacQueen said.

David Petroni, the vice president of development for Innovative Solutions, said that while the property was “a good opportunity, we just weren’t able to move forward” because of the land’s size. Petroni said the “numbers couldn’t come together” and the company “probably needed” to find a smaller parcel to complete that project.

Petroni, MacQueen and Stan Bernstein, president of the Home, Inc. board, stressed that finding land at the right price is a challenge in Yellow Springs.

“I’m hopeful that property owners will be community-minded and will be willing to sell at a rate that makes a profit for them and is feasible enough to make development possible,” MacQueen said.

“Land is hard to come by in Yellow Springs, very hard to come by,” Bernstein said, adding that Home, Inc.’s partnership with Innovative Housing Solutions and Oberer, “a major developer, that makes it a little easier.”

Last month, Home, Inc. was notified by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency that its grant application with the Housing Development Assistance Program was approved. With the $399,628 grant, Home, Inc. will be able to purchase the land for its major housing initiative. MacQueen said the housing group would probably have access to the funds in late summer at which time it will start building.

MacQueen credited Innovative Housing Solutions for putting together the state grant application, which measured about six inches high. The company was “critical to our success,” she said.

The land trust director said the 11 houses, including the land, would cost between $125,000 and $155,000. Each homeowner would be provided with subsidies of around $35,000 to $40,000, plus low-interest rate mortgages, she said.

Home, Inc.’s plans include rehabbing and slightly enlarging one house, at 321 South High Street. The group has also purchased from the Lawson family two parcels, which include a house, at High and Dayton Streets. Home, Inc. will probably raze that house, MacQueen said, then build two new houses. Home, Inc. also has options to purchase one lot on both Green Street and Xenia Avenue, MacQueen said.

Innovative Solutions will build the new houses. Petroni, the Innovative Solutions vice president, called the project unique because “we’re promoting quality market products” that will be “affordable.”

The company created three varieties of houses for the project’s homebuyers to choose from, Petroni said. According to information provided by Innovative Solutions, the houses will include a three-bedroom ranch, at 1,392 square feet; a two-story colonial, three-bedroom, at 1,440 square feet; and a three- to four-bedroom, 1,675-square-foot house.

The housing group will use a $432,248 grant from Federal Home Loan Banks, a financial consortium that funds programs promoting affordable housing and economic development, to provide mortgage rates, at 3.5 percent, on four of its houses. Home, Inc. received this grant last fall. Other homebuyers could receive interest rates as low as 1 percent from a federal program, MacQueen said.

Melanie Brammer, the housing program specialist with the Greene County Department of Development, said that eligible homebuyers could receive up to $6,500 for a down payment and closing costs through the county’s Community Housing Improvement Program revolving loan fund. The zero percent loans can be used with new houses only, Brammer said.

To purchase one of the 11 Home, Inc. houses, an applicant must make no more than 80 percent of median income for the Dayton-Springfield area and qualify for a mortgage, MacQueen said. According to information supplied by Home, Inc., 80 percent of median income for a three-person household is $43,350 and for a four-person household, $48,150.

Home, Inc.’s goal, MacQueen said, is to have buyers “lined up” before construction begins. MacQueen said that about 80 people have requested information from Home, Inc., most of whom have been from Yellow Springs. Sixteen families have followed the required steps to secure a mortgage, she said. Of those 16, all but two are headed by women, including nine single moms, according to MacQueen. A quarter of the applicants are African-American, she said.

As a community land trust, Home, Inc. will own the land on which the houses sit, while the homeowners will own the houses. Through a formula, Home, Inc. keeps the price of the houses down when the homeowners sell and allow the homeowners to receive some profit.

—Robert Mihalek