Miami Architect wins top national award for affordable housing design

Posted at 1:02 PM, Oct. 19, 2007

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Kadushin Associates Architects of Miami and Ann Arbor, Mich., earned a top national award in Builder Magazine's 2007 Builder's Choice Design & Planning Awards Thursday night in Washington, D.C.

Kadushin Associates founder and principal Abe Kadushin, right, said the award cited the firm's design of phases III, IV and V at Woodbridge Estates, a Hope VI community redevelopment project in Detroit by Scripps Park Associates. That's Kadushin associate Chris Allen on the left and Warren Nesbitt, Group Publisher,
BUILDER/Multifamily Groups, Hanley Wood Business Media in the middle).

The 47-acre, $92 million mixed-income development on the site of the former Jeffries Homes public housing community includes 101 for-sale single family homes, town homes and duplex condominiums and 294 rental town houses, duplexes, triplexes and enhanced senior units.

Woodbridge Estates also includes a retail and community center, elderly tower renovations and existing tower renovation for loft condominium units.

Off-site development consists of infill housing in the adjacent Woodbridge Farm and Woodbridge neighborhoods, Core City neighborhoods and Briggs neighborhood.

Lennar in Zephyrhills: 2-BR town home priced from $130's

Posted at 4:10 AM, Sep. 27, 2007

TAMPA, Fla. --- One of the nation's most prolific home builders is selling new, 1,371-square foot town homes in Zephyrhills northeast of Tampa priced from the $130's, according to a company news release.

Lennar's Eiland Park Town Homes is a gated community located near S.R. 54 and Eiland Blvd. with its own swimming pool and cabana, picnic area, gazebo, volleyball court and playground.

Mark Metheny, right, president of Lennar's North Tampa division, says two new new model town homes that open in Nov. feature GE appliances and ceramic tile floors. Two and three-bedroom town homes at Eiland Park come in three floor plans that range in size from 1,371 square feet to 1,531 square feet.

Arguably, Lennar has taken the most aggressive approach to 'affordable' homes among Tampa Bay- area builders. As Dan DeWitt reported in the St. Petersburg Times on Sept. 4, Lennar sold off inventory homes at Hernando Oaks in Brooksville---the community "that pioneered the idea of selling luxury homes in Hernando County" with some double-deep discounts:

The couple ended up paying $110,000 and $115,000 for two houses, each of them selling for more than $60,000 less than the market value, according to the Hernando County Property Appraiser's Office.

Some luxury homes at Hernando Oaks are priced as high as the $400's.

Miami Architect draws big wows at Punta Gorda Fla. affordable housing community

Posted at 4:31 AM, Sep. 7, 2007

PUNTA GORDA, Fla. --- Coconut Grove architect Abe Kadushin will play a starring role at a groundbreaking ceremony this morning in Punta Gorda.

The event marks the start of construction of a $27 million Florida-style Hope VI community with 85 public housing units, 81 low-income, tax-credit apartments, and three market-value apartments. The Gulf Breeze Hope VI community will even include 'green' energy-efficient central-air heating and cooling.

Kadushin will probably keep to the background. It's his work that will star in the showcase ceremony. Kadushin is one of the leading lights of a new generation of architects and designers for whom quality homes for working families---remember those old-fashioned values America used to celebrate?---offer more rewarding challenges than adding more plinths and cornices to one more McMansion.

Call them post-Duanyans.

Steve Reilly, staff writer for the Sun-Herald in Punta Gorda, posted an excellent story yesterday with no pictures but loads of details (and one or two strange assertions that are probably misunderstandings, as likely ours as his):

 

The housing authority will offer one-to-four-bedroom apartments, with the first floor dedicated to the elderly. The public housing units will be scattered throughout the other floors.

The apartments will be available to those who earn up to 60 percent of the local median income. The median income varies from year to year and is set according to the size of the family. The annual median income for a family of four in Charlotte County is $25,400.

Public housing rentals will be based on the individual incomes of the residents. The residents will be expected to contribute 30 percent of their income for the rent. Federal Housing and Urban Development funding pays the rest.

The residents in tax-credit units will be expected to pay their rent; however, the rent wouldn't exceed 2 to 2.5 percent of their incomes. The maximum rent is set by the IRS annually.

The Punta Gorda Housing Authority partnered with lender Primerica and developer Norstar Group, which had the good sense to commission Kadushin for the design.

Barack Obama: "predatory lenders... driving low-income families into financial ruin"

Posted at 10:25 AM, Aug. 29, 2007

LONDON --- Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama published an essay in today's Financial Times, the European equivalent of a Wall Street Journal without the Rupert Murdoch. 

Quoth Obama:

The implosion of the subprime lending industry is more than a temporary blip in our econ­omic progress. It is a cancer that, given today’s integrated financial markets, threatens to spread with devastating impact to housing and to our economy as a whole, unless we act to contain it.

It is also a parable about how an excess of lobbying and influence can defeat common sense rules of the road, placing both consumers and our nation’s economic well-being at risk.

While predatory lenders were driving low-income families into financial ruin, 10 of the country's largest mortgage lenders were spending more than $185m (€136m, £92m) lobbying Washington to let them get away with it," he wrote, citing figures from the Centre for Responsive Politics.

We can't link to the article without a subscription, but Financial Times correspondents Jeremy Grant and Eoin Callan in Washington posted a linkable, likable analysis of Obama's essay that offers another glimpse or two:

...Mr Obama blamed lobbyists working on behalf of lenders for obstructing tougher regulation of the subprime industry, adding: "Our government failed to provide the regulatory scrutiny that could have prevented this crisis.

Grant and Callan report that Senate Banking Committee chairman Christopher Dodd, also a Democratic presidential candidate and a Senator from Connecticut, and House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank, D-MA, think Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could help pick up the slack if the Bush administration would lift caps on the giant mortgage lenders' portfolios. But their main focus is Obama's 'radical proposal.'

Mr Obama said the government needed to "stop the unlicensed, unregulated, fly-by-night mortgage brokers who are hoodwinking low-income borrowers into loans they can't afford".

He added that "Washington needs to stop acting like an industry advocate and start acting like a public advocate".

Many thanks to Jerome a Paris of the European Tribune for alerting us about this via DailyKos.com.

FloridaCRED.org eyes 'new generation' of affordable community developers

Posted at 8:37 AM, Aug. 27, 2007

TAMPA, Fla. --- Calling all community developers: the Community Real Estate Development (CRED) Professional Certificate program at the University of South Florida, a unique summer seminar course at USF's Collaborative for Children, Families and Communities that's guiding 26 participants through development of six projects with more than 120 affordable homes and apartments, has launched www.FloridaCred.org to provide an online learning resource and a forum for new community development concepts.

Former Bank of America training executive and HUD official Thomas M. Zuniga, left, told Miami Herald Business Monday editor Nancy Dahlberg last week, "We want to birth a new generation of community developers. It's no longer about being a do-gooder. Affordable housing is a major economic issue."

Zuniga, managing director of DSG Community Marketing Services, serves as Program Manager and Principal Instructor of the CRED Certificate Program.

Zuniga posted Launching FloridaCRED yesterday to mark the event.

Expanding the supply of housing that is affordable to and attainable by working families has become increasingly complex.  My wish is to expand our University of South Florida Community Real Estate Development classroom by using technology to create a "big tent" campaign for affordable housing through increased awareness and understanding of affordable housing issues.

I hope for our site to become a listening post for the many voices of affordable housing---a place where students and practitioners of community development can brainstorm possibilities, advance innovative ideas and recognize best practices.

I would like for us to use FloridaCred.org to establish a knowledge base on affordable housing and to that end, just like with our classroom, I promise to recruit local and regional experts who will weigh in on various topics through writings and interviews, and thereby foster dialogue.

The web-based project---privately funded through August, 2008---means to examine relevant affordable housing and community development issues, best practices, new concepts and new partnership, funding and development opportunities in an open, online symposium with an academic focus.

Quoth Zuniga:

I am inviting colleagues new and old to weigh in on the various topics that are relevant to our business.

This is the new "Journal of Community Development."

Miami's Los Sueños affordable rental apartments the real deal

Posted at 3:17 AM, Jul. 30, 2007

(Cross-posted from Florida Workforce Housing Network with permission).

RealEstateMiami blog posts a dazzling image of Miami architect Chad Oppenheim's design for Miami Dade College in downtown Miami. George Jetson would love it.

Further down, more noteworthy: on-the-street details about Los Sueños, Pinnacle Housing Group's recently-opened 179-unit highrise not far away on 36th St., where:

...179 families now have homes in the one-, two- and three-bedroom units at manageable rents for their incomes — from $273 to $857 per month, based on 60 percent of the average median income or below.

Funding, RealEstateMiami reports:

...included a state of Florida allocation of Housing Tax Credit Financing plus $4.5 million from Miami-Dade County Surtax Funds and $1.99 million from the city of Miami’s HOME Funds.

Palatka expects rush for 12 new homes priced at $100k financed by Dept. of Agriculture grant

Posted at 4:31 AM, Jul. 27, 2007

(Cross-posted from Florida Workforce Housing Network)

PALATKA, Fla. --- Palatka, Fla., and Putnam Co. plan to sell up to 12 publicly-owned home sites for $1 each and use $500,000 in U.S. Dept. of Agriculture grant funds to spur development of 12 new homes, half in the city and half in the county.

John Nelson, executive director of the Palatka Housing Authority, said his staff has already located four sites and are working to identify eight more to build 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom two-bath homes.

Chris DeVitto at Palatka Daily News has the story:

Nelson said people need to recognize that these homes are not subsidized housing.

"This is not public housing," he said Wednesday. "The homes will cost $100,000 to $110,000 and part of that will be paid for with money from the grant."

Each family that qualifies will receive $35,000 to apply to the mortgage, and the rest will be financed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Nelson said.

"They will be responsible for the difference between the cost of the house and a $35,000 soft second mortgage," he said. "And if they live in the house for five years they will not have to repay the $35,000."

The hope is that building these homes on vacant lots will bring additional revenue into county and city coffers through property taxes and also provide affordable housing, he also said.

Showcase of new, single-family homes in Tampa offers up to $60,000 in financial aid

Posted at 8:36 PM, Jul. 25, 2007

TAMPA, Fla. --- This is how you rebuild a neighborhood with families, not facades. The City of Tampa and Tampa's Housing and Community Development Dept. are hosting a New Single-Family Homes Showcase on Saturday, July 28, 2007 at the Ragan Park Community Center, 1200 E. Lake Ave. in Tampa.

The event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Builders, lenders, community development organizations and city representatives will be on hand to assist buyers in qualifying for up to $60,000 in financial aid and down-payment assistance.

Florida Workforce Housing Network will be on hand to photograph the event and report on it over the weekend, which will also be shared here.

The video---hosted by YouTube---marks an important milestone in the evolution of this web site and the marketing of affordable housing in Florida. Click on the image at left to go to the YouTube page with the video, then click on that image to play the video (RealTown, which ranks as one of the most sophisticated and powerful web communities in real estate, does not yet accommodate YouTube video embeds but (I'm just guessing) will eventually do so as more Realtors learn of the power of this marketing format. RealTown is so sophisticated that the 'workaround' to present this video was very simple. So...click on the picture and we'll be glad to welcome your participation in this historic event.

If you'd like to email us with your name, we'll inscribe it in our Annals of History so you'll have something to show your grandkids one day.

Many thanks to Israel Segara, Contract Management Officer at the City of Tampa-Housing and Community Development's Ybor Service Center, for making this video available to our project.

Tampa developer: turn abandoned school into teacher town homes & condos under community land trust

Posted at 9:28 AM, Jul. 25, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. --- Don Shea, left, CEO of the St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership, has an idea. And it's a good one.

He wants to turn an abandoned school building---the former Euclid Elementary School in St. Petersburg, now Euclid Center---into condominiums and town homes teachers can afford to buy. For now, the school board is listening.

So is the media. Jane Meinhardt broke the story in Tampa Bay Business Journal six weeks ago. Last week Paul Swider followed up in the St. Petersburg Times. On Friday, Isabel Mascareñas at WTSP-TV Channel 10 did it again---with video.

"It's really a brilliant idea," says Nick Pavonetti, right, founder and managing director of PDC Affordable Housing in St. Petersburg. One of Fla.'s leading affordable housing consultants, the former banker and commercial developer would like to partner with Shea and build town homes designed to complement the two-story red brick school house built in 1925 (Meinhardt) or 1940 (Swider).

Shea, who lives across the street from the school facility, envisions nine condos in the building shell and 10-12 new town homes on the nearly two-acre site---much of which is now covered by parking lot. The project could get under way as early as next year, Shea says.

First, a community land trust

Shea told Meinhardt he wants St. Petersburg Downtown Partnership to form a community land trust and convince the school board to deed Euclid Center over. Taking land costs out of the equation---and utilizing economical construction techniques like Pavonetti's modular two-story town homes---could deliver three-bedroom homes priced as low as $170,000, within reach of a teacher's salary.

"Don Shea has done his homework," said Pavonetti. "A community land trust could assure that the homes remain affordable to the next generation of teachers."

Pinellas schools superintendent Dr. Clayton Wilcox, right, said Shea's proposal might be dicey. Not all teachers would qualify , he told Swider at the St. Pete Times, and and that could raise legal issues. But, Swider reports, Wilcox thinks they can work a deal.

Dave Metz, St. Petersburg's deputy mayor for neighborhoods, told Swider the city plans to put some of its property near Mercy Hospital into a land trust and let Habitat for Humanity and Grady Pridgen build an affordable-housing development.

The school-recycling-as-community land trust strategy might be the first of its kind in the U.S. And it might be one that other Fla. counties will adopt as young families move away in search of more affordable places to live and Fla. public school enrollments decline.

 

Coveted SEBC Aurora Award goes to new concept in safe, affordable housing

Posted at 10:01 PM, Jul. 20, 2007

ORLANDO, Fla. --- TV host, producer, author and licensed Florida building contractor Kristin Beall, left, earned a prestigious Aurora Award at the Southeast Builders Conference in Orlando last week for 'a new concept in safe, affordable housing called "Storm Safe Homes."

The SEBC's Aurora cited Beall's Summerwind model home, right, for Charlie Johnson Builder (she's vice president) at The Oaks at Summer Glen in Eustis. The three-bedroom, two-bath house offers 1,546 square feet of living space priced at $229,999, and like all 59 homes at the Oaks at Summer Glen, it's Fortified...for safer living®, which probably looks better in a headline than a news release.

You'll want to hear her tell it. Click on There's More to read her news release, posted at Earthtimes.org.

(This brief is cross-posted from Florida Workforce Housing Network with permission, photographs courtesy Homes By Her (Ms. Beale) and Charlie Johnson Builder (Summerwinds model).

Miami Housing Prices Should Drop by 40 Percent to Meet Affordable Goal

Posted at 9:48 PM, Jul. 16, 2007

(Cross-posted at Florida Workforce Housing Network).

MIAMI, Fla. --- Average housing prices in Miami need to drop by 40 percent if Miami is to restore its historic income-to-housing costs ratio, according to Irvine, Calif.-based John Burns Real Estate Consulting.

Miami's Local 10 TV reported the story Friday:

But despite recent record-breaking foreclosure months and an abundance of luxury high-rise condos being built, real estate prices in South Florida continue to hold relatively steady.

Buyers know that sooner or later prices will have to go down, so they're biding their time. Sellers think that sooner or later prices will start to inch back up. Is this what they call a Florida standoff? Who's going to blink first? And who cares?

Financial analysts expect that to change in the coming months, when thousands of adjustable-rate mortgages come due -- forcing financially strapped sellers and "flippers" to ditch the property or risk foreclosure.

But even if prices fall, it won't be enough to make a dent in South Florida's affordable housing shortage.

Seven East Tampa community organizations to host Community Survival Day July 28

Posted at 4:45 PM, Jul. 13, 2007

(Cross-posted from Florida Workforce Housing Network and mynewfloridahome.org)

TAMPA, Fla. --- Seven East Tampa community organizations will host Community Survival Day – Moving To The Next Level from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday, July 28, 2007 at 18th Ave. Park (west of S.R. 41 between 18th Ave. E and 21st Ave. E).

The seven organizations---the Tampa Bay Community and Family Development Corp., Family and School Support Teams (FASST), Hillsborough Co. Health Department, Lee Davis Neighborhood Service Center, Lee Davis Advisory Board, The East Tampa Community Revitalization Committee, and the CDC of Tampa, Inc.---want to provide families, aspiring leaders, students, and community members in East Tampa and surrounding areas with information, resources and enrichment activities that will improve the availability of services and the community's access to them.

That's a lot of people power under development.

That's a living, breathing, sweating kind of democracy under a July sun. In Florida, where we know sun. The spirits of America's Founding Fathers must be kicking up their heels with glee.

Six hundred to 1,000 participants are expected.

Conchita L. Canty-Jones of the Tampa Bay Community and Family Development Corp. (a 501(c)(3) community service organization) is looking for sponsors.

"Our goal with Community Survival Day is to provide community linkages to resources that will impact the community," Ms. Canty-Jones explained.

Event themes will include Minority Health Disparities, Education, Economic Development, Housing, and Youth Relations, with activities for children and adults.

Ms. Canty-Jones: "Our agenda, at a glance, includes: Walk-A-Thon, Booth Displays, Smoke-Out (Stop Smoking Campaign), Bogie Bear (Mascot and entertainment for youth and adults), back-to-school supplies, and of course food and music."

In the past, this event has drawn more than 600 people.

This is democracy in action. Smoking cigarettes is a problem in East Tampa---it shortens lives, wastes precious economic resources, and dirties the environment (just as it does at Tampa Palms). And ultimately, it effects everyone in one way or another. But while many Americans might imagine that TV commercials and restrictive ordinances will do the trick, Community Survival Day will feature a Stop Smoking booth manned by volunteers who aim to help those afflicted kick the habit.

Housing is a problem too, for too many families. The CDC of Tampa, Inc. will be on hand to showcase new homes for sale in East Tampa---single-family homes with lawns to mow that a family income of $41,600 can afford to buy.

Not to go all Norman Rockwell, but this is the throbbing heart of community laid bare and it's an awesome sight.

Sponsors: Please send contributions---including donations of gift cards, supplies, etc.---to Tampa Bay Community and Family Development Corp., 3000 N. 34th Street, Tampa, FL 33605.

Sponsor Levels and Benefits: