Elyria to donate two properties for state affordable home construction program

Elyria is seeking to donate two parcels of land as potential sites of new affordable housing built through the Welcome Home Ohio program. Welcome Home Ohio is a state program that provides grants and tax credits to land banks, nonprofits and other agencies to allow them to build affordable housing and sell it to income-qualifying potential homeowners. The Lorain County Land Bank received funding from the state to participate in the program and is seeking to build 10 properties in the county, including two in Elyria. On Monday, Community Development Director Ashley Scott presented a request at a joint meeting of City Council's Finance and Community Development committees for the city to donate a vacant parcel on Wayne Street to the land bank so that it could be used as the site of one of the planned homes in Elyria. Scott said the city also plans to donate a parcel on Louisiana Avenue, where a former community garden once stood, to be used as the site of a Welcome Home Ohio build. Both of the properties will become single-family homes that will be sold to eligible owner-occupants. Both parcels are in areas where the median income is at or below 120 percent of the county average, as is required by the Welcome Home Ohio program. Councilman Brad Armstrong, I-5th Ward, said he was happy to support a program to build more affordable single-family homes in the city. "The parcel that is being donated (on Wayne Street) to this program, my whole childhood I thought and was told that it is unbuildable," Armstrong said. "So now to hear that somebody will actually have a brand new home right there is amazing. Also, another point that is amazing is that by us donating, as Ms. Scott informed me, that it does reduce the cost in the final cost of the home to the homeowner. A win is a win out here." Armstrong said he had seen renderings of the planned home that were "beautiful" and he felt its construction would raise the values of the surrounding properties. Scott also asked the city to reduce all applicable building permit fees and water and sewer tap-in fees that could apply to the two projects. She said that the reductions would be to a maximum of 50 percent to further support the construction. For the Wayne Street build, the total amount of waived fees would not exceed $3,666 and the Louisiana Avenue waived fees would not exceed $3,166. "We have waived municipal fees for other organizations in the past and I think this is a great cause, so I would ask you (joint committee members) to support it," said Councilman Phil Tollett, D-at Large. Both proposals were unanimously passed out of the joint committee with a recommendation for approval and will go before Council as a whole for consideration at its next meeting on Monday. The Lorain County Land Bank has partnered with Community Building Partners of Canton to carry out 10 Welcome Home Ohio builds across Elyria, Oberlin and Lorain. Statewide, the Ohio Department of Development has committed $22,812,500 in grant funding and $20 million in tax credits for the Welcome Home Ohio program over the next two fiscal years. The department said that this funding has the potential to drive the construction of 1,134 affordable, owner-occupied homes across the state over that period. For the first 15 years after each home is constructed, it will be restricted to be sold only to individuals making 120 percent or less of the area median income, and they are not to be sold for more than $220,000. Contact Owen MacMillan at 440-329-7123 or omacmillan@chroniclet.com.