Housing complex planned for city
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on January 12, 2015 1:46 PM
There might soon be a cheaper place to live in downtown Goldsboro for young professionals and families, developers told Goldsboro City Council at a recent work session.
Greg Horn and David Brown, who are proposing an affordable housing complex on South Center Street, said the units would add to, not detract from, the redevelopment of downtown.
The complex would consist of 64 apartments in three buildings at the corner of Center and Spruce streets.
Rent would be $600 or less per month, with the apartments aimed at residents who earn 60 percent of the area's median income or about $30,000 or less. The target market for the apartments is young professionals and families, Horn said.
Horn is president of DHIC Inc., and Brown is an architect with J. Davis Architects.
The developers said the complex should not be considered "public housing." It would be an attractive addition to downtown and fit well with the renovations associated with the Streetscape project that is under way, they said.
"I think this is something that will ultimately be supported by the council and the community," said assistant city manager Angel Wright-Lanier, who used to sit on the board of DHIC. "I've seen the other affordable housing complexes they've built and they are beautiful. It isn't what people stigmatize as affordable housing."
Before design plans and construction can move forward, Horn and Brown will need to apply for tax credits from the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, which would allow the rent for an apartment in the complex to be affordable for the targeted income bracket. The deadline to submit the application is Jan. 23.
Affordable housing is not the same as Section 8 housing, which is what the public normally associates with project housing, Ms. Wright-Lanier said. With affordable housing, tax credits are sold after they are approved to receive equity from investors and lower the cost of rent.
In Section 8 housing, renters use vouchers to pay for housing. If the affordable housing building project on the corner of Spruce and Center streets comes to fruition, anyone looking to live there would need to pass a criminal background check before being approved.
"I don't think it goes against the image we're trying to create downtown," Ms. Wright-Lanier said. "Because of the appearance DHIC's building projects have when they're finished, they don't have the stigma around them that affordable housing usually has."
DHIC has completed projects in Raleigh and Cary, and has a project under development in Kannapolis. Each of these projects includes apartment complexes for low-income or formerly homeless residents.
City Manager Scott Stevens said the city has $450,000 invested in the lot, and DHIC must offer an appropriate price for the project to move forward.
"We've talked about making that end of the street residential in the past," Stevens said. "When you talk about affordable housing, people get concerned that it's going to be low-income, high-crime, Section 8 housing. They think we're going to create another project. That's not the case."
Stevens said the proposed affordable housing for downtown would look like market rate housing instead of affordable housing.
"I think this is going to be a good fit for our downtown," Stevens said. "I don't know how that's going to look to someone that lives in a project or affordable housing outside of downtown. The new stuff is going to look better because it's new. We're certainly not trying to make folks feel bad about public housing."