More Flagstaff, AZ townhouses for $160K
The recent groundbreaking for the first phase of the Izabel Homes project signals a new milestone for the city-run community land trust.
In a partnership with local builder Loven Contracting, Flagstaff officials expect to have a total of 16 homes added to the land trust by 2015, offering one of the only paths to home ownership for local families making no more than 80 percent of the area median income. For a family of four, that would mean those making less than $49,200 annually would qualify.
Community Housing Manager Sarah Darr said the groundbreaking was a huge step forward for the community land trust, which was formed by the Flagstaff City Council in 2006. The Izabel units will be the first permanently deeded, affordable homes to be built specifically with the land trust in mind.
The city will be able to price each home between $160,000 and $180,000, with the city retaining ownership of the land and allowing the homeowner to purchase only the house itself. Read the rest of this page »
Downsizing
California residents resort to mini-apartments to live in hot areas
By Roger Vincent
McClatchy News Service
LOS ANGELES — Timm Freeman’s Santa Monica apartment has 17-foot ceilings, granite countertops and collector guitars hanging on the wall.
He’s got a built-in microwave, dishwasher and central air conditioning.
All in 350 square feet.
Freeman’s coffee table is also his dining table. His desk is three steps from his sitting room. And three paces from his stove.
“Everything is within three steps of the next thing,” said Freeman, 40, a graphic designer.
Southern California, meet the Manhattan-sized mini-apartment. In a region known for its sprawl, diminutive dwellings are finding a toehold among renters who couldn’t otherwise afford to live in choice neighborhoods. Read the rest of this page »
There’s No Place Like Home
There’s no place like home
Communities work to meet workforce housing standards
By Casey Farrar
Sentinel Staff
Housing Commission Workshop
Please join us for New Hampshire’s first Housing Commission Workshop, Thursday, May 13, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Room 101 Putnam Science Center, Keene State College, Keene.
Partners: Heading for Home, Southwest Region Planning Commission, New Hampshire Housing
Panelists: From the Hanover Affordable Housing Commission, Len Cadwallader, Executive Director, Vital Communities, White River Junction, VT. From NH Housing, George Reagan, Administrator, Housing Awareness Program and Ben Frost, Director of Public Affairs.
The panelists will present a variety of information that will give participants a better understanding of how a community can benefit by the establishment of a local housing commission. The first half of the program will include lessons learned in creating a housing commission by the Hanover Affordable Housing Commission, an overview of the new Housing Commission Workbook developed by New Hampshire Housing and a summary of potential legal and tax implications for municipalities. The second half of the program will be a facilitated question and answer session focused on the formation of a housing commission.
Registration: There will be a buffet at 5:30 p.m. with the program from 6-7:30 p.m. There is no charge to attend this workshop, but pre-registration is required. To register for this event or for additional information, please contact Lisa Murphy at (603) 357-0557, lmurphy@swrpc.org or Susy Thielen of Heading for Home at susyt@headingforhome.org. Please register no later than 5:00 p.m., May 11, 2010.
The home of the future: smaller, simpler, more affordable
Amy Pyle
Dec 5th 2009
Marianne Cusato was busy designing cottages for people displaced by Hurricane Katrina when requests started pouring in from developers, builders and homeowners across the country begging her to create a similarly compact dwelling for them.
“I was very focused on disaster housing and the small-house movement came to me,” Cusato told WalletPop.
Though Cusato’s 300- to 1,800-square-foot Katrina Cottages — now for sale at Lowe’s — are an extreme example of the smaller-is-better mentality, the movement appears to be more than a fad, especially now that the economy has tanked.
A slew of surveys shows that homeowners are looking to slim down, hoping for less space to heat, cool and clean, and cheaper mortgage payments. A recent CNN poll found 69% of respondents felt homes had gotten too big and Kermit Baker, an American Institute of Architects economist, reported in October that while people want a home office more than ever (reflecting in part the growing number of self-employed and telecommuting workers), special-function rooms such as home theaters, exercise rooms, guest wings and three-car garages have become less popular.
Read the rest of this page »
Affordable housing critical to future of Keene
By Jessica Arriens
Sentinel Staff
Published: Saturday, November 07, 2009
Picture a middle school dance. Boys on one side of the room, girls on the other, everyone too shy to make the first move onto the gym-turned-dance floor.
In a sense, the relationship between young professionals and their elder counterparts can be thought of the same way.
Either side may want to participate in community initiatives, but their involvement won’t happen without a first step. Or: until somebody walks across that room, nobody dances.
Talk of how to take those first steps — and why they are important — happened Friday morning in Keene, at an annual Business Leaders Breakfast sponsored by Heading for Home, the Monadnock Region’s housing coalition.
Though the discussion hinged on the economic necessity of young professionals, much of it also centered on the necessity of their having affordable housing — something a community needs for a vibrant workforce to flourish in the first place, event participants said. Read the rest of this page »
2009 Business Leaders Breakfast Invitation
Heading for Home’s 4th annual Business Leaders Breakfast on November 6.
Topic: Will the Monadnock Region be ready for economic recovery?
Panelists:
Neil Giarrantana, President and CTO of Lucidus Internet Solutions, Katie Sutherland, Architect, and Steve Reno, the former Chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire.
The panel discussed the economic necessity of having affordable housing available when trying to recruit and retain younger professional workers. This is one of the critical issues that could make or break the Monadnock region’s future economic growth as we compete with the rest of the state and New England.
Dan Scully, Daniel V. Scully Architects, presented his three dimensional model of central Keene showing how housing density could be increased in the central business district by adding upper levels to existing buildings.
Community Sponsors:
This event was sponsored by the Savings Bank of Walpole and Connecticut River Bank, NA.
New Innovative Summer 2009 Donor Campaign
Heading for Home offers an easy way for our community to support workforce housing in the Monadnock Region. Click here or on the “Donate Now” white text link above to submit your donation. You will receive email confirmation via PayPal that your donation has been accepted.
We are utilizing this approach to maximize the impact of our donors’ contributions while minimizing the high overhead costs (postage, printing, etc.) incurred when using a mail-based donor campaign.
Do you have questions about what Heading for Home has accomplished? Click here to see a summary of Heading for Home’s recent accomplishments.
Region sees housing decline, Study: Workforce stock is shrinking
By Jessica Arriens
Sentinel Staff
Published: Thursday, April 16, 2009
It’s not often that a tax map is so shocking it makes people gasp.
But when those maps show that in six years more than half of Keene’s workforce housing — housing stock that employed people in low- and middle-income brackets can afford — simply disappeared, otherwise mundane tax maps become unbelievable.
Put simply, “It’s a pretty significant decrease,” said Torin Hjelmstad, one of three Keene State College geography students responsible for the map, one part of a workforce housing study titled “May the Force be with you: Workforce Housing in the Monadnock Region.”
Hjelmstad, along with students Sarah Forler and Elizabeth Kane, presented the report to the public Wednesday night at Bentley Commons in Keene. Read the rest of this page »
May the Force be with You: Workforce Housing in the Monadnock Region
On April 15, 2009, Heading for Home and the Keene State Department of Geography presented the report, “May the Force be with You: Workforce Housing in the Monadnock Region,” an original study comparing the changes in workforce housing availability in the Monadnock Region in 2001 and 2008.