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

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

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.