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.

The homes will vary in size to accommodate different family sizes, but all will be townhomes.

The city has several conditions on the resale of homes in the trust, including capping the amount for which they can be resold and requiring the new buyers to meet income eligibility guidelines.

Two separate housing projects have produced a total of the 33 permanently deeded affordable homes in Flagstaff through partnerships with outside groups.

“We are very excited to be moving forward with our community partners toward 16 new, owner-occupied homes in the Sunnyside neighborhood,” Darr said.

FEDERAL GRANTS PAY BILLS

The barren, 1.67-acre site near Coconino High School has been in city possession for several years after the city took control of several buildings that were found to pose a significant health hazard.

The city spent roughly $1.1 million — mostly from federal grants set aside for neighborhood revitalization — to demolish the buildings, clean up asbestos and relocate several renters.

Darr said the finished lots will end up costing less than $70,000 apiece, far below the going price for a finished lot inside the city limits.

The city will also be loaning Loven Contracting $180,000 to help cover the costs of building the first three homes.

The construction loan will be paid off when the homes are sold, but Darr notes the money will essentially be put into a revolving account to fund the construction of future phases of the same project, with the city being repaid as each home is sold.

Darr said the city has received significant interest in the project after the groundbreaking was announced.

The city’s Nexus Study, released in 2007, said Flagstaff has an immediate demand for 800 affordable housing units and will need 2,800 more over the next 15 years.

NO CITY INVESTMENT, NO BIDS

The city had initially put the entire Izabel Homes project out to bid without any type of city investment with the hope that the developers could find private financing for the entire project. The city received no bids on the initial proposal.

Darr said it was difficult to find banks willing to offer construction loans in the immediate aftermath of the subprime mortgage meltdown.

“For developers acquiring construction financing and for low-income home buyers looking to acquire mortgage financing, the lending market has become quite conservative,” Darr said.

Drastic changes in lending and the general local economy over the last few years were part of the reason it took several years for the city to set up the community land trust and begin building homes.

“As lenders have become more conservative in lending practices with first-time homebuyers and specifically, permanently affordable units have become more complicated,” Darr said.

Joe Ferguson can be reached at jferguson@azdailysun.com. ]]> http://www.headingforhome.org/2010/06/28/more-flagstaff-az-townhouses-for-160k/feed/ http://www.headingforhome.org/2010/06/06/247/ http://www.headingforhome.org/2010/06/06/247/#comments Mon, 07 Jun 2010 01:02:59 +0000 Susy Thielen http://www.headingforhome.org/?p=247 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.

Freeman’s apartment may be smaller than many suburban master bedrooms, but rents in his Olympic Studios complex are comparatively small too: $1,110 a month at the low end, and the beach is just a mile away.

Prospective tenants need to sign up for a waiting list: The 165-unit Olympic Studios has been filled since it opened in late 2008. The developers are now building a similar complex nearby, and a pint-sized apartment project is also planned for the Palms neighborhood of West Los Angeles.

The units are about the same size as a large recreational vehicle and have the same design imperative: Fit as many features as possible into a small space, but don’t make it claustrophobic.

“It’s like a Rubik’s Cube,” said Jim Andersen of NMS Properties, which built Olympic Studios. “It’s a geometry problem.”

Freeman’s living areas _ kitchen, desk area and TV nook _ flow from one space to the next, unimpeded by doors or hallways. The only interior door is to the bathroom. He climbs 14 carpeted steps to a landing big enough for his double bed and a closet. A wide ledge over his stove and refrigerator holds some of his paintings.

“It feels like more than it is,” Freeman said. “It’s just right for me.”

When Freeman’s 7-year-old son, Gear, visits, he sleeps on the fold-out couch.

“He’s got his own little space with dedicated shelves for personal stuff,” Freeman said.

Still, there are challenges. When Freeman hosted a rehearsal for his ukulele band, the Ooks of Hazzard, the nine members took up the length of his apartment, from front door to window. The backup singers had to perch on the stairs.

“It was very full,” Freeman said. The close quarters made it “kind of fun,” he said, although he hasn’t hosted another practice since.

Freeman, who is recently divorced, also had to pare down his clothes and other possessions before moving in. Residents can rent a storage cabinet in the underground garage for $60 to $100 a month, but he didn’t feel the need.

“Getting rid of stuff I didn’t need helped me untether myself,” he said. “It was a gift, rather than a punishment.”

There wasn’t room to keep Freeman’s collection of 12 guitars in a closet, much less on stands on the floor like he used do, so he hung them on the walls. “It turns out I like guitars hanging up like artwork instead of hidden away in a closet,” he said. “I dig it.”

Nontraditional families like Freeman’s were in the minds of the Olympic’s architects. “Families are not two and a half kids and a dog anymore,” said Wade Killefer of Killefer Flammang Architects.

Creating the smallest possible units was a competitive game in the Santa Monica firm, Killefer said, with his fellow architects challenging each other to shave off a foot here or there on the design. They started by allotting space for the necessities.

“You’ve got to have a couch, a stove, a bed, a place for two people to eat, a desk, a closet and storage space,” Killefer said. “Then figure out where your dresser is going to go.”

Their presumption was that most tenants would be single, or a parent with one child, with a smattering of couples.

Mini-dwellings are at the frontier of a downsizing movement that’s embraced by environmentalists, and that challenges decades of a bigger-is-better trend in American homes.

While Olympic Studios is an extreme case, American dwellings are getting smaller. The median size of a U.S. home, which jumped from 900 square feet in the 1950s to 2,277 in 2007, has edged down to 2,161, Census Bureau figures show.

The smaller units make most sense in places like Santa Monica, where the cost of land is high and there is an abundance of jobs and commerce. That means people want to live there, but may not be able to afford the rents for traditional apartments.

For developers, small is beautiful because they can build more units per square foot of land. A 165-unit complex would normally not be possible on the site of Olympic Studios, but developers won permission from Santa Monica city officials in part by agreeing to set aside 20 percent of the units for people whose annual incomes are at or below the local median of $55,000.

Those residents pay $1,110 a month. Others pay $1,388, which is still about 30 percent cheaper than other new apartments in Santa Monica.

“As the price of housing rises faster than incomes for many people, you will see this being a small but steady and growing part of the market,” said John McIlwain, a senior fellow at the Urban Land Institute think tank in Washington, D.C. “How do you make units affordable to people in the middle-income work force if they want to live in the city?“

One answer, McIlwain said, is to make them small but with upscale designs and finishes such as granite countertops and stainless steel appliances.

That offers a competitive advantage in Santa Monica, where much of the apartment stock is several decades old and sometimes not well maintained.

“I was like, wow, everything is new and working,” said Deja Prem, a massage therapist who shares an Olympic Studios unit with her high-school-aged daughter Cecilia. “I can stay off the freeway and walk to the grocery store.”

Prem’s unit is Spartan. There is no television and no clutter. A small couch in front of an electric fireplace folds out to make her daughter’s bed. Upstairs under an image of Buddha on the wall, Prem sits on her bed to work on a screenplay on her computer. She often takes her meals there, too.

One of the few signs of personal possessions is a shelf full of shoes by the front door.

“Why lug around a lot of stuff like it’s going to be Armageddon?” Prem said. “I just like expansive spaces, because it opens up my imagination.”

Being in the middle of it all has its down sides. Olympic Studios sits in a busy light manufacturing district served by heavy trucks and traversed by thousands of commuters.

“There is street noise when the windows are open,” making it harder to concentrate on his school work from Santa Monica College, said resident Ori Dvir, who was attracted to Olympic Studios because he can walk to classes.

He sold most of his belongings when he moved from Chicago about six months ago, so fitting into his unit wasn’t difficult, he said.

“I like the idea of scaling down, said Dvir, who is in his 30s. “I prefer small places. They are easier to clean and maintain.”

— Los Angeles Times

Communities work to meet workforce housing standards

By Casey Farrar
Sentinel Staff

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.

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.

Consumers are also abandoning some of the excesses that had come to define the modern home before the housing bubble burst: living rooms in addition to family rooms, big master bedrooms with big master baths, walk-in showers that are adjacent to standalone Jacuzzi tubs, pantries the size of closets and closets the size of bedrooms.

Soraida Oquendo of Shrewsbury, Mass., is among those homeowners desperately seeking to downsize. Her 4,369-square-foot home, now for sale, includes a full basement and a pool — both amenities that seemed perfect when her two children still lived there. But now she and her husband yearn for a house that’s half the size and more affordable. The economic downturn, she says, has hit their liquor store business and the family’s finances.

“I’d like something only one floor…the most three bedrooms. Bathrooms? Two and a half would be fine. No big dining room. Something very simple and easy to clean,” Oquendo said.

Robert Lang, director of Brookings Mountain West, an urban development research partnership between the Brookings Institution and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, sees the downsizing trend as a pendulum swing from just a few years ago. The sociologist describes the previous upsizing of housing as “the Tuscanization of wealth,” in which Tuscany-style homes grew ever larger as they were layered with add-on after add-on. “There were oversized entry halls, grand staircases,” he told WalletPop. “Their purpose was to demonstrate status.”

While the Oquendos are more traditional downsizers — empty-nesters ready to move on — Christine Harmel of Austin, Tex., is part of the new wave of less-is-more-leaning homeowners. Harmel, who does public relations for green companies, moved last year from a three-bedroom, three-and-a-half bath home in Charleston, S.C., to half of a 1,200-square-foot duplex.

The hardest thing to give up was the kitchen, she said, since she likes to entertain. Now she plans parties for good weather so she can hold them outdoors — and warns people not to come if it rains.

A National Association of Home Builders survey found the downsizing trend started back in 2007, when potential buyers were asked what trade offs they would prefer if costs exceeded their budget. In 2007, 58% said they would choose a smaller house with high quality materials and amenities over a bigger home with fewer amenities. In 2004, only 37% said they would make that choice. During that period, the desired square footage dropped from 2,426 square feet to 2,292.

“The living room is the most likely to disappear when the buyer is forced to choose,” Stephen Melman, the NAHB’s director of economic services, told WalletPop. Also on the chopping block: giant kitchens and large master baths.

A recent Wall Street Journal article said builders have become so convinced of the trend that they are making some of the choices for consumers, drawing up blueprints without the grand foyers and staircases, forgoing fireplaces and reconfiguring garages so that cars park end to end instead of side by side.

The Katrina designer, Cusato, has responded to the downsizing movement with the soon-to-be unveiled “New Economy Home” models. “I’m shifting from natural disasters to man-made disasters: the economy,” she said.

At 1,676-square feet, Cusato’s floor plans offer several options, including a downstairs suite that can ebb and flow with a family’s needs, starting out as a family room or office, morphing into a rental or in-law housing and perhaps later a downstairs master bedroom for retired homeowners. Cusato even suggests it could allow a divorced couple to continue to share the house if finances demanded it. What you won’t see in Cusato’s blueprints are large hallways, giant master suites, media rooms and her least favorite luxury: the Roman tub.

The smaller-is-better movement isn’t just a passing fad, said the NAHB’s Melman. Baby Boomers are now empty nesters and they simply don’t need as much space. Combine that with a recession and it appears this trend has legs.

“The trend of increased floor area over the past 35 years declined slightly during previous recessions in 1975, 1980-82 and the early 1990s. But this time it could be more permanent,” he said. “The depth of the recession and anticipation of increased energy costs combine with demographics this time.”

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.

Affordable housing — defined as housing people in low- and middle-income brackets can afford — is something “everyone in the community has to take notice of,” said Keith F. Thibault, chief development officer for Southwestern Community Services.

Lately many communities have. The state Legislature passed a workforce housing law last year that requires towns to provide for their fair share of affordable housing. Southwestern is hoping to break ground in spring 2010 on a 24-unit affordable housing complex off Water Street in Keene.

And the link between affordable housing and economic vitality was fortified this summer, thanks to the final report of the Governor’s Task Force on the Retention of Young Workers.

The group — a varied crew including members from state colleges and labor organizations — was charged with devising a plan to recruit and retain young workers, essentially combating what’s been called “brain drain.”

Half of the state’s college students vacate New Hampshire post-graduation, said Stephen J. Reno, former chancellor of the University System of New Hampshire and another speaker at Friday’s event.

The national average is 18 percent.

Most of New Hampshire’s workforce is also closer to retirement than entry-level age, he said. That means a dip in the state’s labor pool is coming once those workers officially leave. And the decrease will probably be severe, since it will be accompanied by workers who held off retirement to survive the recession, he said.

“We are a graying workforce,” Reno said.

If the state doesn’t do something about it, New Hampshire will not be attractive to businesses, he said.

The governor’s task force issued a list of recommendations, and among them was something affordable housing advocates have been promoting for years: Continue supporting increased opportunities for workforce housing.

There is certainly a local shortage. In the past seven years, the amount of workforce housing in the Monadnock Region decreased by more than 55 percent, according to a report written by students in Keene State College’s geography department, in collaboration with Heading for Home, and published in April.

Finding an affordable place to live was a big challenge for Neil Giarratana, president of Keene software company Lucidus Corp., and another speaker at Friday’s breakfast (and generator of the young professional-middle school dance metaphor).

Giarratana and his wife searched and searched for a place to rent. Once they found a rental home, they were beat out in the application process, and eventually had to buy a place of their own.

The struggle almost prevented him from moving to Keene, said Giarratana, who is also chairman of the city’s Young Professionals Network. But he’s glad his family did.

“Once we looked we fell in love with this town,” he said.

“(Keene) continues to look at who it is as a culture and what it wants to be when it grows up,” through initiatives like Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth Hitchcock Keene’s Vision 2020 and the city’s master plan revision process.

And discussions like those are crucial to solving the problem of young worker retention — and, in turn, affordable housing — event participants said.

“It really does take a community putting its heads together,” Reno said, to figure out how to create a more hospitable environment.

Jessica Arriens can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1433, or jarriens@keenesentinel.com

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.

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.

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.

The report, which looked at single-family homes only, was the students’ senior project: Forler and Kane will graduate next month, Hjelmstad graduated in December.

“This is the first time we’ve really had a study of this caliber,” said Susan R. Thielen, coordinator of Keene’s nonprofit housing coalition Heading for Home, which collaborated with the students on the report.

The students surveyed city and town planners, selectmen, employees of Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene, and did a case study in Walpole, looking at why that town chose to conserve 52 acres of land, known as the Ballum Farm property, from development.

In the end, what most surprised the students was “how big of a problem this really is,” said Forler.

“You just don’t really think about it as an issue,” she said.

To determine how much of Keene’s workforce housing shrank between 2001 and 2008, the students first used the median income of Keene residents as a benchmark for what an affordable home would be.

In 2008, the median income was $61,089. Using the N.H. Housing Finance Authority’s “affordability calculator,” students determined that an affordable home for a family of four in Keene would be about $188,351.

The affordability calculator takes into account such things as interest and property tax rates, mortgage repayment terms and available cash for a down payment.

In 2001, when the median income was $57,640, an affordable home was $176,130, the report said.

The students then applied those figures to assessed property values to find which homes in the city would be considered workforce housing.

The result? Those shocking tax maps — one for 2001 and one for 2008, with the workforce housing properties marked in green.

In 2001, Keene had 3,958 single-family homes that could be considered workforce housing. In 2008, there were only 2,193 — a 55.4 percent decrease.

This workforce housing shortage also contributes to a host of other problems, according to the report.

It has skewed the average age of residents in Keene: Young families cannot afford to live here, but the city has a high population of 20 to 24-year-olds, due to Keene State and Antioch University New England, and a high population of 40- to 55-year-olds.

But while Keene’s population has basically flatlined for the past 20 years, the population of Cheshire County has continued to rise, from about 75,000 in 1970 to 100,000 in 2007.

People are finding it more practical to live outside of Keene and commute to work, the report said, since both property taxes and home prices are much higher in the Elm City.

The report ended with ways to alleviate the workforce housing shortage, such as revamping zoning regulations, offering better incentives to developers and dispelling myths about the definition of workforce housing — that it equates to building ghettos that will overcrowd towns, for example.

People also have to realize how big of an issue workforce housing truly is, the students said.

“You have to spread the word to everyone,” Kane said.

Hjelmstad agreed. The importance and shortage of workforce housing needs a bigger audience, he said, “to make a dent in people’s consciousness.”

Jessica Arriens can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1433, or jarriens@keenesentinel.com.